More Trouble Than I'm Worth 5: Reflections
by Rose Stetson
Summary: Grace returns to her parents' house. Note: This really IS the final installment of the "More Trouble Than I'm Worth" series.
1. Coming Home

**Reflection**

"Colonel Samantha Carter, a noted astrophysicist and one of the original members of the legendary SG-1, passed away early yesterday morning due to complications arising from a cerebral stroke." The radio announced. "The sixty-seven-year-old Colonel's work in engineering and astrophysics were integral in bringing to fruition the Stargate Prog..."

Daniel turned off the radio before he looked over at twenty-five-year-old Grace Carter-O'Neill who sat in the backseat. The scientist who had inherited her father's lighthearted nature and her mother's near-genius intelligence had been understandably shocked when he and Teal'c had arrived at the Beta site colony to inform her of her mother's death.

"Nicholas is going to be home for the funeral." Vala began, shaking him out of his thoughts.

Daniel shook his head in warning as he looked at his wife. Their son's arrival for the funeral wouldn't do much to cheer Grace up.

"I mean...the house will be a little fuller, so if you'd like some company..." She continued. "We still have the guest room..."

"I'll go to Mom's house." Grace mumbled.

Vala sighed as she looked over at Daniel, who shrugged. He'd been the only child who had lost his own parents at an early age. He understood what Grace was feeling, even if his memories were somewhat fuzzy about his own orphanage.

The drive was silent. It seemed trivial to ask about her life in the colony. She'd become one of the first colonists to leave Earth in memory of her adventurous father who had died when she was merely seventeen at the ripe age of seventy-five. The heart attack had been sudden and while Daniel, Vala, Teal'c, and Mitchell had been left to reel in shock, Sam had nearly lost her own will to live.

If Grace hadn't been living at home as she finished her high school education and if the subject of colonization hadn't required Sam's scientific expertise and her experience with SG-1, Daniel thought that she probably would have given up.

She'd become a virtual workaholic after Grace went off to college - just like she had been before Grace had been born.

"Daniel, it's this street..." Vala said, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"Right..." He said, shaking his head.

"Are you all right?"

"Fine." He said, dismissively.

She knew better than to ask again. He would tell her when they got home; he was trying to protect Grace from yet another painful reminder that her last remaining parent had just passed away.

He turned into the familiar driveway of the brown building that had begun as Jack's house immediately after his divorce from Sara and that had later served as Sam and Jack's home upon their engagement and later marriage. He turned the car off, and stepped out of the green SUV. He opened Vala's door for her as Grace stepped out of the car with a single suitcase in her hand.

Daniel took the opportunity to study the living testament to his best friends' lives. Grace had become as refined as her mother had been with the humility of her father. Now, the young woman whose shoulder-length hair was brown like her father's had been, but curled like her mother's had been turned her piercing blue eyes upon the house with a sorrow that made her look like she was six years old again, lost in the overwhelming expanse of space.

"Let me take your bag, Grace." He said, taking her roll-aboard suitcase.

He didn't get any protest. He didn't get any response actually.

She led the way up to the front door. She raised her hand as if to knock on the door before she caught herself. Her mother wasn't there to answer the door; nobody was.

"Here's the key." Daniel said, handing her the small keychain which had belonged to her mother.

Grace closed her fingers around the cold metal as she felt a figurative knife go through her heart at the reminder that she was alone in the world.

"Thank you." She managed, looking at the keys, as a small sob was strangled in her throat.

She hesitated before turning and unlocking the door. She walked into the house and instantly memories washed over her.

Christmases in the living room with Mitchell, Teal'c, Vala, Daniel and Nick (after he'd been adopted). Her father's wake. The graduation party that Daniel, Vala, Nick and Cassie had thrown for her after her father's death. Thanksgivings with Uncle Mark, Aunt Leah, Katie, her husband and kids, Logan, his wife and kids, Aunt Marsha, Uncle Sean, and Aunt Lisa.

The living room still smelled the way her mother liked and looked the way her father liked.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay with us?" Vala asked, gently.

"I'll..." She began. "I'll be fine." She managed.

"Are you sure?" Daniel asked, touching her arm sympathetically.

She nodded. "I need...I need to clean it up - get it ready to sell...I can't do that from your house."

"You know where to find us if you need us."

She nodded.

"Your mom's car should still be in the garage."

Grace gave Daniel a small, strained smile which he instantly recognized as one of the expressions she had inherited from her mother.

Daniel wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. "If you need anything..." He whispered.

"I know." She whispered, tearfully.

"Maybe Teal'c could come and stay here for a few days..." Vala offered as they walked back to the car.

"I'll ask him." He said, thoughtfully. "She needs someone to help her through this..."

"Maybe we should have Nicholas drop in and see how she's really doing..." Vala suggested.

"This is not the time to try your hand at match-making, Vala." He said with a sigh. "She's just lost her mother."

"I wasn't trying to force an agenda on anyone, Daniel. She may enjoy having someone nearer to her own age with whom she can talk about this."

"If he's got time, maybe we can all go and visit her." Daniel sighed.

She nodded, accepting this as an agreeable compromise.

Daniel sighed as he turned the key in the ignition. His heart hurt when he remembered that two of his dearest friends, the closest thing to family he had besides Vala and Nicholas, were now dead. He missed them.


	2. Memories

_"Why don't we ever have my birthday party on my birthday?" Her insatiably curious six-year-old self asked one day._

_"Because you and Jesus have the same birthday." Her loosely Catholic mother replied. "And we want you both to have birthday parties."_

_"But why can't he move his birthday party?" She asked, sticking her finger in the icing before sticking her finger in her mouth._

_Her mother took the bowl from her as she finished frosting the cake. "Because we're not the only ones celebrating his birthday. People all over the world celebrate his birthday."_

_"Really?"_

_She nodded. "Should we ask the whole world to change their plans so that you can have a party on your birthday?"_

_"No. That's silly."_

_"Besides, don't you like getting Christmas presents AND birthday presents?"_

_She nodded, vigorously._

_"If you had your birthday party on Christmas, you might never get Christmas presents."_

_"Oh." She had responded, thoughtfully. _

That had been the end of that. Her mother's wisdom had trumped all, and Grace's excitement about having two days where she received a mountain of presents from all who loved her had been reinstated.

Now, she was twenty-five and alone. She'd probably re-consolidate her birthday and Christmas so that she was only lonely one day a year.

Grace walked into the living room with a shiver. It was fall in Colorado which meant it was a hell of a lot colder than the colony she was used to living in on one of the sandy planets.

_"Can't tell you how much I LOVE those sandy planets..." Her father would joke often._

What she wouldn't give to hear one of her father's sandy planet jokes.

She pushed her thoughts out of her mind as she got down to practicality. It was cold, and she stood in front of a fireplace. She bit her lip as she remembered the thousands of times her father had started a fire, her mother had brought in some cookies, and they'd read stories until it was time for her to go to bed.

"No." She whispered to herself. "Don't do this to yourself."

With the deftness that her father had demonstrated during her childhood, she started a fire. As it roared, she rubbed her arms and looked around the room. It all looked like her father; her mother had probably spent little time in this room after he died.

Suddenly, she noticed her mother's sweater which had been flung on the edge of the couch.

Inhaling sharply, as her mother had done oftentimes in her life, she reached for the sweater and slipped it on over her t-shirt.

Tears welled up in her eyes. She missed her mother, but she couldn't bring herself to say it. To say it, after all, implied that it was unchangeable fact, and she wasn't ready for that. Not yet. Not when she could still turn the corner and expect her mother to be standing there, waiting to give her a hug and tell her that it was all a nightmare.

Her stomach growled, and suddenly, she hated her life. How could the world continue to revolve when everything had crumbled around her?

The laws of physics - which she had studied since the time she'd been old enough to understand what her mother was talking about when it came to the Earth and it's place in the solar system and the galaxy and the universe - told her that she was being irrational. How could personal tragedy affect the Law of Universal Gravitation put forth by Isaac Newton? How could Einstein's Theory of Relativity put forth an exception for the mother who had held that theory so close to her heart?

It was time for coffee, she decided in a manner that would have made her father proud. It was time to stop thinking about everything that was unpleasant about her world. It was time to drink a cup of coffee and make herself more productive.

She walked up to the kitchen and started the coffeemaker. With a small sigh, she leaned her backside against the counter as she waited. When she saw the stairs to the den, she bit the inside of her cheek. She hadn't been down there yet. She walked over to the stairs with a small sigh as she touched the banister. She hesitated for a moment, but eventually she walked downstairs. For the most part, this had been a family recreational room, but it also housed her mother's "at-home" lab.

That was the first thing she did - enter her mother's small shrine to science. She walked into the small addition, and looked around.

She had so memories in this room alone. Each instrument and device was familiar to her as if it had been a part of her own body. This was where she'd first learned about Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, and Einstein. There, in the corner, was the miniature Stargate which her mother had still been trying to figure out only a few months ago.

This was where her love for science had sparked. Her mother had always been one of her heroes, and the knowledge that science had challenged her faculties had led Grace to desire a portion of that enlightenment. Her father's sense of adventure had been the other part of her which had found fulfillment when the SGC had contacted her upon completion of her doctoral degree from MIT.

Her mother had been so proud of her when she'd announced that she was going to be one of the first people to voluntarily colonize an uninhabited planet.

Grace swallowed down tears as her eyes fell upon the picture of her parents' wedding on the lab table. At least they weren't separated any more, she thought to herself. Not by invisible Earth boundaries or by planes of existence.

Another picture caught her eye; the picture where her parents, on their wedding day, had picked her six-month-old self up and had their picture taken with her between them.

The Three Musketeers, her father had called them. The Three Stooges, her mother had corrected.

"Am I interrupting?" A male voice broke through the barrier of her thoughts.

The sound of breaking glass told her that she'd just dropped and broken the glass in the frame. "Damn." She muttered as she looked at the mess.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

She looked back at him. There stood the tall and lean, twenty-seven-year-old Nicholas Jackson with black hair, brown eyes and an apologetic smile.

"No, you're fine." She said, shaking her head. "I just...let me get a broom and clean this up."

"No, it's my fault. I'll clean it up. Just point me in the direction of the broom closet."

She pointed to a small pantry to the right of the door. "As a scientist, my mother expected a mess or two."

"She was a smart woman." He acknowledged as he reached into the closet and pulled out a broom and a small dustpan.

Grace swallowed down her emotion - she needed to get used to this. "Yes...yes, she was."

He walked over to where she stood in the middle of the glass, and looked at her. "I hope you don't mind me letting myself in. I tried to ring the doorbell, but you didn't answer. I didn't think you'd have left since you got in just yesterday, so I came down..."

"You're fine." She said, numbly.

"You're sure?" He asked, gently. "Because...you're still standing in the middle of the mess I'm trying to clean up."

She looked down. "Oh...sorry..."

Her reactions were sluggish, and Nick studied her. "You don't look well," he observed offhandedly as he bent down to sweep up the glass.

"My mother died two days ago. Am I supposed to look cheerful?" She asked, sounding a great deal like her sarcastic father.

He finished his task before he looked at her. He handed her picture which he had salvaged from the remains of the frame. "No." He said, matter-of-factly. "But you look pale. Like you haven't eaten anything since you found out."

"I'm not hungry."

"My mom sent over a casserole. She told me to make sure you ate some of it." He said, seriously. "As a physician, I agree with her."

Grace eyed him wearily before she left the lab. "If I wanted company, I would have gone to your parents' house. They invited me after all..."

"I know. And either I came to see how you were doing or they threatened to send Teal'c to stay for the next week - or for the duration of your stay."

"You're obnoxious." She said after a moment.

Usually when she said things like that to him, she was joking. Right now, however, she was perfectly serious.

"You're entitled to your own opinion." He said with a shrug. "But I'm not leaving until you eat something more than the coffee you've brewed upstairs."

"You'll be here for a while..." She challenged.

"I don't have anything to do today." He paried.

She sighed as she shook her head. She walked over to the bookshelves which lined the den walls. She'd been fascinated by the number of books which had always filled these shelves. Her father's bookshelves had all held various era's popular literature. He'd owned and read the whole Harry Potter series for instance. But he'd never been as ignorant as he'd portrayed himself. She could tell because the other books that lined the shelves were well-worn copies of "The Iliad", "The Odyssey", "Moby Dick", "The Red Badge of Courage", "A Tale of Two Cities", "The Prince and the Pauper", and other classic books through the ages; stories which he had recited to her from memory, often quoting direct passages from them.

Her mother's tastes were somewhat similar in that her books spanned the ages, but unlike her father, her mother had been more attracted to the books and papers published by the founding scientists of her field. Galileo's "Starry Messenger", his "Dialogues" and Newton's "Principia" were among the books her mother held dear.

Grace touched the spines of the books with a tender finger as she remembered how much her father would tease her mother for her "science" library.

Without warning, she also remembered how her parents had once awoken her in the middle of the night and carried her up to the roof where the three of them watched the stars in the night sky. She had been too small to understand what her parents had been talking about when they had cryptically reminisced about their days on SG-1, but even then, she'd known that they had a special connection to the heavens of which others could only dream.

It was the same sense she'd always gotten from Daniel when he would tell her the ancient mythologies of various cultures. He had lived and breathed it where her history and literature teachers had only read it.

"We're pretty lucky," Nick said as he stood beside her.

She barely acknowledged his statement by looking at him out of the corner of her eye for a moment.

"I mean, we were raised by people who understood the world as it was - not what they wanted to believe it to be."

"Yeah." She finally muttered, turning from the bookshelves.

She turned on the television, not wanting to talk about her parents anymore.

"Next, on the "Julia Donovan" show - a tribute to Colonel Samantha Carter who almost single-handedly revolutionized the way we think about..."

Grace turned the television off again.

"Do you want to talk about her?"

"Who? Julia Donovan? I think she's got a lot to learn about tasteful journalism."

"No. Your mother."

"No, I don't." She said, feeling her carefully schooled emotions begin to shake.

"One of the things I remember about her is how kind she was when she met me for the first time." He said, softly.

Grace remembered that day as well, though she wouldn't admit it. Not now anyway.

_"Grace!" Her mother called. "Daniel and Vala are coming. They have a surprise!"_

_Five-year-old Grace hurried down the hallway as Jack walked in the door. "Daddy!" She cried, excitedly as she ran into his arms._

_"Ooph..." He teased. "My knees won't handle this for too much longer."_

_"Daddy!"_

_He laughed. "I'm just teasing, princess."_

_"Did you bring me a present?" She asked, eagerly._

_"You know how Mommy feels about me bringing you presents all the time..."_

_She sighed. "Yeah...I do..."_

_He handed her a yo-yo. "So let's just keep this between you and me." He whispered._

_She giggled._

_"I heard that!" Sam called from the bedroom._

_"Heard what?" Jack asked, innocently. A moment passed before he looked at Grace. "What are you all excited about, kiddo?"_

_"Daniel and Vala are bringing a surprise." She grinned._

_"Oh?" He asked, surprised, himself._

_Sam walked out of the bedroom, fastening some stud earrings into her ears. "They managed to a-d-o-p-t a little b-o-y." She said, cryptically._

_"That last word is boy!" Grace cried, proudly displaying her knowledge for her parents to see._

_"And you forgot she's learning to s-p-e-l-l..." Jack chuckled as he kissed his wife._

_"Hey, you're keeping secrets from me." Grace pouted._

_"Yes. It's something that all mommies and daddies do from time to time." Jack said, picking up his daughter._

_"But we're the Three Musketeers, Daddy! You said so." She said, soberly._

_"More like the Three Stooges..." Sam muttered under her breath as the doorbell rang. "They're here."_

_"You wanna answer the door, kiddo?" Jack asked, looking at his daughter._

_She grinned. "Yeah."_

_He let her down, and she ran to the front door. In a moment, it was open, and Daniel, Vala, and a strange looking boy a couple of years older than her stood on the stoop._

_"Daniel, Vala...come on in." Sam greeted. "We'd love to meet your friend."_

_"Sam, Jack, this...is our son, Nick." Daniel said, introducing them to the bewildered little boy who stood between them. "We finalized the adoption today."_

_Sam grinned as she extended her hand to the young boy. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Nick. My name's Sam."_

"I'll never forget the way she looked at me. Like I wasn't just some kid who'd been swept off the street and dumped into foster care. She looked at me like I was no more or less important than you - her little girl."

Grace coughed before hiding her face from him.

"I'm sorry...that was insensitive of me." He said, softly. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

"I'm not crying." She snapped. "Just...got something in my eye."

"Aren't we guys supposed to use that excuse?" He asked, confused. "I thought it was allowed for girls to cry."

She threw him a look of venom. "Leave. Just...leave..."

"You're much more like your father than you'd like to believe." He finally sighed.

"And you're more like yours than you'd like to believe." She retorted, angrily. "Now, I didn't ask you to intrude in my house, I didn't ask you to break my parents' wedding photo, I didn't ask you to tell me your memories of my mother, and I didn't ask you to psychoanalyze me. My mother's been dead for a mere thirty-six hours. Can I have a little bit more time to try and process things without you interfering?"

He sighed. He'd pushed her too far. "Okay. I'll leave the casserole if you're hungry."

"Don't bother. There's plenty of food in the cupboards."

"If I come home with the casserole, my mother will kill me." He said, shrugging. "Eat it, feed it to the birds...I don't really care..."

She swallowed as she looked at him steadfastly.

"Call if you need anything."

"I won't."

"Of course not. You don't need anything." He said after a moment.

She stared at him for a moment. That last comment, flung at her in frustration really hurt her.

Finally, he turned, a strange, tortured look in his eyes that she'd only seen a handful of times before. "I'll see you around, Grace."

As he turned and walked back up the stairs, she was alone again.


	3. Running

She walked out to the garage. There sat her mother's vintage Corvette - rather, there sat the Corvette which had originally belonged to her father as a way to "lure" her mother into his romantic web. He'd given it to her when he moved back to Colorado so that he could purchase another truck.

Now, all Grace could think about was that the red sports car was everything that she wasn't feeling right now: lively, vibrant and sexy. What she wouldn't give for a dark blue sedan.

She climbed into the front seat, and stared at the cool leather of the steering wheel. She was almost afraid to start it, but she had to go out and buy something to wear to the funeral.

The funeral.

She closed her eyes. She hated funerals. Everyone stared at you as if you were pitiful and utterly destitute. She looked at her mother's cell phone - the only connection she had to the rest of the world. She could call Vala. She wouldn't have to do this alone.

She didn't want to talk to Vala right now. Vala would try to talk; make up for the silence by adding more noise. No, she couldn't handle Vala right now.

She could call Daniel. No, he'd send or bring Vala.

She could call Teal'c. She shook her head. No...he'd been too close...

Maybe she'd have to go alone.

Without a thought, she reached for the phone and dialed a familiar number.

"Dr. Jackson."

"Nick?" She asked, vulnerably.

"Grace?"

"Yeah."

"You okay?"

"Fine. I just...I need to...get something to wear...for the...funeral, and I..."

"You want some company?"

She swallowed down the lump in her throat as tears threatened to fall. "Yeah."

"I'll be right there. We'll take my car so you don't have to drive your mom's."

She was silent for a moment as she tried to collect herself.

"Grace? Grace, are you still there?"

"Thank you." She managed.

"Always."

--

The doorbell rang, and she walked over to the door. She peeked through the peephole and opened the door. "Thanks for coming."

"I told you. It's no problem." He said, seriously.

"I would have used one of things I left behind, but I've lost some weight since I went offworld."

"I noticed." He said, seriously. "You've always looked healthy to me, but you look especially...toned."

"I've been sparring with some of the Jaffa in the Beta colony."

"A good way to tone your muscle." He said, thoughtfully.

"Do you only look at things from a medical perspective?" She asked, suddenly. She wasn't judging him, merely speaking of her observations.

"It's part of who I am." He said with a shrug. "But I'll stop voicing my observations if that's what you want."

"No, you won't." She said, shaking her head. "If it's part of who you are, you won't stop."

He shrugged. "I could at least try if it would make you more comfortable."

"It's okay." She said with a sigh.

A moment of silence passed between them as they got into the car and began driving before he looked over at her. "Do you want to talk?"

"About my mom?" She asked, looking forward. "Not really."

"It's normal to have deep feelings when one of your parents dies." He said, softly. "It means that whether you knew it or not, they meant a lot to you."

"That doesn't make me feel better, Nick." She said, looking over at him.

"It wasn't supposed to."

"Why did you say it then?"

"Because I think you need to talk, but you feel ashamed that you want to cry, and I'm trying to help you realize that you're only human."

"I should have called your mother." Grace mumbled as she looked out the window.

He sighed. He wanted to take this burden from her; he knew what it was like to lose parents at an early age. After all, that was why he had been adopted.

Perhaps her pain had been deepened by the fact that she'd had them just long enough to realize how wonderful they were before they'd died.

"Grace, why did you call me?" He asked after a moment. "I mean, it seems like you don't want me around, but I'm not doing anything different than I usually do."

She sighed. "I don't know..."

"I think you do. You just don't want to admit it."

"Are you going back to the whole "I don't want to appear vulnerable" thing?"

"Yes, Grace, I am." He said, seriously.

She huffed as she rolled her eyes. "Look, if you don't want to take me, let me get out and I'll call a taxi."

"I'm not going to do that."

"Well, I don't want to listen to this anymore..."

He sighed. "Fine. You really are fine, and you don't care that your mother just died, and you certainly are in no way vulnerable right now."

"Don't do that."

"Don't do what? Repeat the same arguments you've been spouting since I got into town yesterday?" He asked, seriously. "They sound really hollow when you have to listen to them, don't they?"

"I never said any of those things; I never even implied them."

"Okay, I exaggerated...but only the first two. The last one you've been screaming for the last two days."

"Vulnerability in the colony is a dangerous thing."

"You're not in the colony right now." He said as he parked in one of the spots at the mall's entrance.

"Can we get this over with?" She asked with a sigh. "I have a lot of packing and sorting and cleaning to do while I'm on leave, and I'd like to get back to it."

"Sure." He said, slipping out of his seat as he opened the car door.

She inhaled sharply before she did the same. She tried to collect herself; Nick always brought her to the breaking point of emotion. If he only knew how hard it was for her to stay as calm and collected as she was when he pushed her buttons.

He approached her, matching her quick stride as they walked into Dillard's.

"I don't care what it looks like. Just get the first black dress you can find in a size six..." She said as she remembered the number of times that she had gone shopping with her mother.

She felt like she was suffocating on her repressed emotion as she remembered the manicures and pedicures she'd shared with her mother. They would get their hair done; they would buy a new pair of shoes or a new outfit. Sometimes, they would do both.

"Grace?" Nick asked, looking over at her, concerned.

So many people who were living life without the faintest clue that her mother - a woman who had made a living saving their collective asses - had just died.

"Grace, you don't look so well..." He said, studying her.

His voice echoed in her ears as she felt the room spin.

He caught her as she collapsed into his arms.

--

Awareness came suddenly as the sharp scent of smelling salts brought her to awareness.

A small crowd of people had gathered around her, and Nick looked up at them. "Give her some room, folks. She's okay."

"I can't believe I just passed out." She sighed.

"I can." He said, seriously. "When I picked you up, I saw the casserole sitting on the table where I left it yesterday. You didn't touch it."

"I wasn't hungry."

"Not psychologically maybe. But I think your blood sugar finally tanked. That put together with your emotional strain..."

"Nick..."

"Let's just get some food."

"I'm fine!" She protested.

"Doctor's orders."

She sighed. "Fine."

He supported her weight as he helped her to her feet. "I don't care what you say, I'm keeping an eye on you."

She opened her mouth, but he placed a finger on her lips. "It's either me or Teal'c. And if you choose Teal'c, my parents will be there every day too..."

She sighed before she nodded. "Okay."

"What do you want? Chinese? Italian?"

"Chinese, if you don't mind."

"Not at all." He said, shaking his head as he guided her to the Panda Express. Within a few moments, they had both ordered their combos, and he led her to one of the tables.

He watched her for a moment as she pushed her food around on the plate.

"It only counts if you actually eat it." He teased, gently.

She managed a miniscule smile and took a small bite of her rice.

Nick, taking his cues from her, began to enjoy his own meal.

Upon noticing a few more "check-ups" on her meal, she bit her lip. "How's California? Get to treat lots of movie stars?"

"If I did, I couldn't tell you about it." He said, shaking his head. "Doctor-Patient Confidentiality."

"Is that my answer?"

"Do you really care?" He retorted, leaning across the table to look at her more closely.

She squirmed under the weight of his gaze. "Of course! We haven't really gotten to talk since I went offworld, and I thought.."

"I live in Sacramento. We don't have movie stars there." He interrupted as he sat back in his chair. "But it's nice to know that you missed me. You hadn't said it until just then."

"I.." She began. Finally, she sighed. "You should have been a lawyer."

He shuddered. "Give me life-and-death over eternal bliss or endless misery any day."

She couldn't help but chuckle though she almost instantly stopped. "I..."

"You what? You wanted to laugh even though you think the world should have ended because your mother died?" He asked, looking at her sympathetically. "There are worse things."

"Than what?" She demanded, instantly getting back up in arms as she cut off her emotion. "Forgetting my mother and everything she's done for me and for every other member of the human race on this planet?" She asked, incredulously. "No, I don't think so."

"Wait...when did I say that?"

"You didn't have to." She said with a sigh. "That's what's going to happen though."

"What makes you say that?"

She felt tears well up in her eyes. She didn't want to do this. Not here. Not with him. "Because as much as I love my dad...I don't always remember what he was like. I just remember how great it was to have a dad, and even that...sometimes...is slipping."

"Grace, you're not a horrible person for moving on and living your life." He said, catching her hand in his. "In fact, I think it's the opposite. Your dad wouldn't want you to be stuck on evvery little thing he did or didn't do. He'd want you out there living your life the way you know how. And loving every minute of it."

She looked down at her plate for a moment. Her bangs sliipped down to act as a shield which protected her eyes from his studious gaze. "Grace?"

"Hm?" She asked, looking up at him.

"I never saw you cry when your dad died." He said, softly.

She stiffened.

"I mean, your mother started out stoic, but eventually, she was all over the place. You, on the other hand..."

"I am a different person than my mother." She interrupted.

"I know that." He said, seriously. "But...everybody needs to cry."

She looked away. "Let's go get that dress. I'm not hungry anymore."

"You can't keep running away like this, Grace." He said, looking at her earnestly. "It's going to catch up with you at some point."

"I'm a fast runner." She said, simply.


	4. The Funeral

The car came at nine-thirty the next morning. Grace sat in the backseat, clad in a nondescript black dress and matching jacket with her hands clasped in her lap. Her hair was tied back in a simple ponytail with a small silver barrette which she'd found on her mother's vanity.

It arrived at Cheyenne Mountain fifteen minutes later. She sighed as SFs escorted her down to Level 28. When the steel doors of the elevator separated, she gasped in surprise at the sight of Nick standing there, waiting.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, softly.

"I figured you wouldn't want to be alone." He said, simply.

She swallowed as tears moistened her eyes. "You were right." She finally managed as she stepped out into the hallway.

He gave her a small and supportive smile as he placed a hand on the small of her back as he led her to the Gate Room.

--

"We are here to commemorate the life of Colonel Samantha Carter," Daniel said as he delivered the eulogy. "For many in attendance today, standing in the audience or watching via television broadcast, Samantha Carter is a mystery - some hero to whom we owe our very lives. For a relative few, the portrait of this hero was more intimate.

"Sam's life can be broken down into three parts: science, the Air Force, and her personal life." Daniel continued. "She was highly respected in both of her career fields, but few people know that she gave up the fame and the glory so that she could spend the next seventeen years with her husband before he passed away and the remainder of her life caring for and supporting her daughter who is with us today.

"Though a marker will be placed in her memory in Arlington National Cemetary, beside that of her husband's, we release her ashes into the expanse of space so that she may become an integral part of the heavens which she most admired." He took a moment to inhale. "It was my privilege to call her my friend. My only hope is that she, and her late husband, Jack, will continue to watch over Earth as guardian angels as they fought to protect us in life. Rest in peace, Sam."

Grace watched through teary eyes as Daniel, Vala, and General Mitchell, who had flown in especially for the event, took small vials of her mother's ashes. They carefully unscrewed the lids and set them in the event horizon. Within a moment, the vials had gone all the way through and the open wormhole disengaged.

Grace felt empty. It was over. Her mother was officially gone.


	5. The Wake

"So, Carter's lying in the cot, drugged up on morphine, telling me all about the contents of this folder in her personal directory. She tells me that the password is "fishing", and suddenly, I realize she's in love with General O'Neill!" Mitchell cried, taking another swig of his beer. "It was all I could do just to tell her that she needed to change her password 'cuz I was gonna get her home."

Grace inhaled sharply as she passed the boisterous Lieutenant General, only the latest in a long line of Homeworld Security advisors to the President. She closed her eyes. What the hell was the point of a wake? To remind her that in a few hours the house would be empty and to give her the small "reprieve" of having to clean it all up instead of thinking about her parents?

It didn't help that the journalists who had attended the funeral were now here at the wake, looking for some new angle in the "Samantha Carter" saga. Somehow, she knew that General Mitchell's story would spark someone's imagination.

The last thing Julia Donovan needed was the suspicion that Samantha Carter had an affair with her commanding officer.

"You look like you need to be rescued." Daniel said as he walked over to her.

She managed a small smile as she shook her head. "I'm fine."

"Still...Mitchell's story probably struck a little too closely to home..."

She inhaled sharply.

"I thought so." He said, nodding in understanding.

She sighed as she walked up to the kitchen and threw some of the garbage away. "It's not even the stories. It's the fact that one of these damn reporters is going to try to poke holes in my mother's heroic status."

"No one could ever do that."

"Unless they made the Pentagon worry that my parents were having an affair before they were out of a direct chain of command..."

Daniel suddenly understood. "Ooh..."

She sighed. "I don't think my parents deserve to be remembered in that light. They were good people who fell in love. They didn't act on it until it was appropriate."

"That's true." Daniel said seriously. "Your parents were honorable people. I'll say so until the day I die."

Grace's eyes fell to the floor, and Daniel instantly cursed himself. "Grace, I'm..."

She walked swiftly to the screen door in the living room and out onto the balcony. She inhaled deeply as she tried to breathe in the fresh air from the woods just behind the house. She wanted to vomit because she felt so claustrophobic in that house with all of those people...

"Something I can do to help?" Nick asked, opening and closing the sliding door behind him.

"Make them stop telling those stupid stories about my mother."

"I would if I could." He said, sincerely.

"I know." She said, giving him a small smile in appreciation.

"Dad sends his apologies. Words sometimes come out of his mouth before he has a chance to think about them."

She sighed. "It's okay."

"He swears he didn't do it until he met your dad."

She managed an appreciative half-smile as she looked back at the heavily forested treeline.

"Do you know when you're going back?" He asked, interrupting her thoughts.

"To the colony?" She asked, looking over at him as he leaned against the railing next to her.

He nodded.

"Not for a little while. I've decided to sell the house, so I need to go through my parents' stuff, clean it up, get the things I want, sell the things I don't want, and get the house on the market."

"Ah." He said, nodding. "Well, give me a call tomorrow and I'll help you."

"You're not going back to California?" She asked, surprised.

"Not for a few days. You know how Mom and Dad are with change."

She nodded. "Yeah..."

They were silent for a few moments before he looked over at her. "Are you even sure that you want to go back?"

She looked over at him, unsure of what to think. "Why wouldn't I?" She finally asked.

He paused for a moment before he shook his head. "Sorry...I don't even know why that slipped out. Of course you'd want to go back. This is the land of "people who don't really need you"."

She felt a lump swell in her throat instantly as the cold autumn wind stung her cheeks. It wasn't that at all, she tried to reason with herself. It was just that...

She couldn't come up with a good reason.

"You probably have some Marine boyfriend out there."

Her lips parted slightly as she began to let down her defenses. She turned back to the house as the wind whipped her hair around her face. "When I was applying to be a colonist, there were a number of requirements which I had to meet."

He looked at her as he listened carefully.

"Physical fitness, necessary field experience, scientific background...I knew I could reach all of them. In fact, based on those criteria, I didn't even question whether or not I should go with them."

"But?" He prompted gently.

"There was a qualification I'd overlooked. One that only two of us didn't meet..."

He raised an eyebrow.

"We were single."

"And the two of you..."

"Became friends." She said, simply. "He's gay."

"Oh."

She grew quiet again, and Nick took the opportunity to look at her seriously. "Do you have something against being happy?"

Her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Grace, when your dad died, you were dating a guy...Matthew...something-or-other..."

"Vincent. Matthew Vincent." She whispered softly.

"The day after graduation, you broke up with him."

"We were going two different places for school, and I wanted a fresh start in college."

"You never dated anyone for any length of time in college."

"I was concentrating on my studies."

"You're not dating anyone now."

"I told you - my options are non-existent."

"Yet, you'd go back without reservation." He said, looking at her with a steely gaze.

"I'm not exactly stable right now, Nick." She countered.

"If you had been dating anyone..." Nick began. "Do you think you would have broken up with him too? Like you did with Matthew Vincent in high school?"

She felt her heart stop. Had he just accused her of shutting herself off from the rest of the world because her parents had died? Had he just implied that her dating stagnancy had been caused by some subconscious signal that she didn't want a relationship?

If only he knew how many nights she had lain awake at night, crying because there were no arms to hold her.

She turned away as tears welled up in her eyes. "You...you don't play by the rules..." She managed.

He heard the tears in her voice, and he extended a hand to her. He gently turned her around, and pulled her close to him.

She fought with him for a moment as she tried to collect herself. Finally, the tears which had already begun to come started coming more and more frequently.

She banged on his chest three times as she tried to pull away. "Why couldn't you just have come to visit? Why couldn't you have been at the house when she had the stroke? Why couldn't you do something? Anything?"

Her vision blurred with tears as she sobbed. "Why did she have to die, Nick? Why can't she come back?"

He pulled her into a tight embrace as he felt his own eyes tear up. "I don't know, Grace." He managed.

Her tears continued to fall as she clung to him as if her life had depended on the strength of his embrace.

"That's it, Grace." He whispered gently. "Let it out...let it out."


	6. Coffee

Grace stood outside at the break of dawn, her stance grounded to the Earth as she performed the warm-up routines of some ancient martial art.

She stood with her feet apart and her knees loosely bent. The wind rustled in the trees as she moved her arms in fluid motion.

In a moment, she'd released a high-powered blow. With rapid motion, she moved into the agility and precision routine, quickly running through a well-rehearsed choreography. Several steps later, as she paused to catch her breath, she was surprised to hear clapping from behind her.

She turned to find Nick clapping.

She walked over to where he stood. "What are you doing here so early?"

"I went on a coffee run and thought you might appreciate a cup with everything you're trying to do." He said, offering her one of the cups. "But I can't say that I minded the view first thing in the morning."

She blushed lightly as she took a sip of the coffee. She looked at it, somewhat confused, before she looked back at him. "It's perfect, thank you."

He shrugged. "It's not hard to remember when someone likes one sugar and two creams."

"Maybe not," she mused. "But you also remembered my favorite coffee flavor at Starbucks..."

"Hey...you've met my dad." He said, easily. "I don't think he has anything but coffee in his veins anymore. Needless to say, he's taught me a lot about coffee..."

She smiled appreciatively.

"I brought you a Danish." He said, offering her a small brown bag. "It's not the healthiest thing in the world, but I know you enjoy them."

"And it's better this than nothing?" She asked, looking over at him.

He sighed before nodding. "I worry about you."

She accepted the paper bag before looking up at him. "I know you do, and even though I don't always appreciate it...thank you."

He gave her a small smile as she shivered lightly. "It's cold out here...why don't we head inside?"

"Fine with me." He said, walking over to the side door as she hurried up the steps to the porch.

"Thanks." She said as he opened the door for her.

"Anytime." He said with that look in his eye that she never could quite decipher.

"So...what's on the agenda for today?" He asked upon closing the door.

"I thought we should start with the rec room." She said, sobering a little. "Besides Mom's lab, the kitchen, the bedrooms, and Dad's study, that's where the more...personal stuff...is."

He nodded. "And if you run out of time before you get to the living room, you want to tell the movers or auctioneer to just...get rid of it."

She bit the inside of her lip. "Is that bad?"

He shook his head. "No, no, no...I just wanted to make sure we were on the right page."

She inhaled sharply as she managed a troubled half-smile, schooling her features into such a manner so that she looked like her mother.

"Grace, this is the nitty-gritty stuff." He said, looking her in the eye as he touched her arms gently. "There's no right or wrong way to handle this."

She swallowed as she looked into his eyes somewhat vulnerably. "All right..." She finally said with a sigh.

"Why don't you finish your breakfast, shower and get ready for the day?" He suggested gently. "I'll go get some boxes, and we'll get started, okay?"

She nodded, looking down at the floor. "Okay."

He placed his finger under her chin and gently forced her to look up at him. "It's okay to keep living your life, Grace. Your parents would want you to."

She inhaled slowly as she nodded.

Without a word, he leaned in and kissed her gently. "I'll be back in an hour or so." He said with a small smile as he pulled away from her.

She stared at him for a moment before he hurried out the door. As the door closed, she absently touched her fingers to her lips.

Had he really just kissed her?

Had she really enjoyed it as much as she had?


	7. Confusion

The knock at the door surprised her, though she instantly knew who it was.

Maybe that was why her heart had begun to beat more rapidly after she heard the knock.

"Grace?" Nick asked, opening the door slightly. "Grace, are you there?"

"Y...yes..." She stammered.

"Hey." He said, walking into the house. "Are you okay?"

She nodded, rapidly. "Fine."

"You don't look fine." He said, studying her. "What's wrong?"

"You...you..."

"I..." He prompted.

"You kissed me." She finally blurted.

"I did." He said, nodding somewhat matter-of-factly. "Is there a problem with that?"

"Uh...well..." She stammered again. "I, uh, well...it was..."

"Unexpected, unpleasant or both?" He said, looking at her.

She tensed, trying to swallow. "Uh...unexpected."

He nodded, slowly. "Okay. Could I have done something different?"

"Uh...a little...warning...might have been nice..."

He raised an eyebrow. "You wanted me to say something like... "I'm going to kiss you now"?"

"No, I just..." She protested. "I...I just never knew that..."

"That I was in love with you." He finished.

Her eyes widened. "You're in..."

"Love." He said, nodding. "With you."

She felt faint; her heart was pulsing loudly in her chest.

He sighed as he realized she hadn't said anything. "And...you think of me like a brother..." He said with a sigh. "Man, I feel stupid..."

"What?" She asked, looking over at him. "Uh...no...that's...that's not it at all."

He raised an eyebrow. "Then what is it, Grace?"

She looked distinctly uncomfortable as she tried to answer him. "I, uh...I wasn't sure that it was...entirely....appropriate."

He looked at her, genuinely confused.

"Look, I'm...confused." She began as she tried to defend herself. "My mother hasn't even been dead for a whole week, and you - a guy I grew up with - just...kissed me out of the blue without any warning. I don't know what to do."

"It was just a kiss, Grace. I didn't ask you to move in with me. I didn't ask you to marry me." He said, softly. "And I won't ever do it again if you don't want me to."

"I think that would be best." She whispered after a moment.

Awkward silence reigned as Grace tried not to notice his visible disappointment.

"Well...let's get to work, shall we?" He asked after a moment's hesitation.

Grace looked down at the floor as she bit the inside of her cheek. She looked back at him. "Maybe...I should do that myself..."

He studied her with a small sigh. "If that's what you want." He finally said, trying to smile bravely.

She swallowed as she nodded. "I need to think..."

He nodded slowly. "All right. Uh...I'll see you around, Grace."

She nodded as she bit her lip and closed the door behind him. With a sigh, she leaned her back against the door. What had she done?

She stayed there for a moment, trying to comprehend what the last hour and a half had brought to her already confused mind.

Finally, she looked at the boxes which rested against the downstairs railing. Maybe she just needed to get back on track and do what she had planned to do.

She walked past the boxes and snagged a couple on her way down the stairs. Maybe she would start going through her parents' video collection. Teal'c and Vala would probably want most of them anyway.

The box of videos to give away was fairly full before she found the first home video. The nondescript DVD case had only one indicator that it belonged to her parents at all. On the spine of the plastic case in her mother's handwriting was a single word: "Grace".

She inhaled sharply before she looked at the television and DVD player, still sitting in the entertainment center.

She bit her lip before she opened the case and retrieved the DVD. With a trembling hand, she opened the DVD player and placed the DVD inside.

Almost instantly, she turned on the television.

"Hi, Jack." A much-younger TV Sam greeted.

Grace inhaled sharply as she saw her mother's face.

"I'm sending you this message from the _Odyssey _like I normally do, except this is a little different." She inhaled. "I can't send it to you once I'm finished recording because we're in a time dilation field while I try to get us home."

Grace's jaw dropped. "What?" She breathed.

She'd never heard that story.

"I've really done it," The televised version of her mother said with quivering lips as she looked down at her hands uneasily. "I've gotten us stuck in a time dilation field without any clue of how to get us home."

She looked back up at the camera. "You'll probably receive this a little while after I get home; whenever that is. You probably opened this thinking that it was your Simpsons Season 10 DVD set, but found this instead. Watch the whole thing before you call me, please. Everything I need to tell you is going to be on here."

Grace's brow furrowed in confusion.

Sam inhaled. "Jack, you've probably heard by now that the Asgard home world was exploded. You've probably also heard that they did it on purpose. It was hard to watch, and I wish they hadn't done it, but they were determined." She took another deep breath. "Still, there's something else I need to tell you, and if I don't just say it, I may never say it. " She bit her lip and looked back at the camera. "Two weeks after I initiated the time dilation field, I began to suspect that I was pregnant."

Grace's eyes widened as the woman on the screen fought tears.

"I don't know when this will find you," the tape continued. "But I'm going to do my best to document this because even though we never talked about it, I felt that you wanted to be there if you ever had any more children."

Her mother had told her about Charlie when she had turned 10 years old - when she wanted to begin archery lessons. Needless to say, the archery lessons had not happened until she'd gone to college.

"Jack, no matter what happens, I want you to know that I love you. I always have, and I always will." Sam whispered with a trembling voice before she kissed her fingers and touched them to the lens of the camera. Just then, the video went black as the transmission ended.

Grace inhaled sharply. What exactly had happened to her mother on that mission?

Just then, Vala's voice could be heard. "Daniel, how do I turn this thing on?"

"Here, Vala, give it to me. You're going to break it." There was a little bit of an audible scuffle. "Vala! You already turned it on!"

"I did?"

"Yeah. You just didn't take the cap off the lens."

Suddenly, Daniel's fingers could be seen as well as the infirmary.

"Oh." Vala said with a childlike grin as she appeared on tape. "Why didn't you just say so?"

There was silence for a moment, and Grace gasped. She looked so...young...

"Now, how do I look?" Vala asked, looking at her reflection in the camcorder lens as she fussed with her hair. "I'm just not sure about this matter-converted shampoo..."

"Vala, this is not about you. It's about Sam and Grace." Daniel said, firmly.

"Right." She said, ducking out of the way with a sheepish smile.

Grace's eyes widened. She'd been born on a ship?

"Okay, here we are with Sam and Grace." Daniel said as he approached Sam's hospital bed where Sam held her newborn baby. She gave him a small smile as she shook her head. "Do you ever stop filming your excursions, Daniel?" She teased.

"Hey, be grateful." He said, seriously. "Until now, none of us had any posterity that would want to know."

She chuckled.

"Now, where is little Gracie?" He asked eagerly.

Grace shuddered at the juvenile nickname she'd grown to loathe.

Sam pulled the blankets which were carefully wound around Grace back a little so that her face could be more clearly seen.

"Look at that beautiful heart-shaped face," Daniel cooed. "And that head of blond hair."

"She looks just like you, Sam." Vala added.

"Not quite." Her mother said with a melancholy smile. She touched the baby's fingers with her own. "She has my mother's eyes, my father's nose, her father's smile, and my hair..." She said, studying her baby closely.

Grace studied the video intensely. It challenged everything she held to be true. Her parents had told her that she'd been born in this house during a blizzard that spanned Christmas eve and Christmas day.

The video switched scenes again, but Grace turned it off. She needed to talk to someone.

She looked at the box of DVDs. Maybe she would find Daniel and Vala and ask them about...

She closed her eyes as she inhaled sharply. Nick would be there. She couldn't do that to him.

She bit her lip before she remembered that with her mother's cell phone, she probably had Teal'c's number.

She paused before she used it. She probably didn't want someone's caller ID to read Samantha Carter - especially since she'd died only five days previously.

Suddenly, she remembered General Mitchell's story. "Mom's computer...she was a scientist...she wrote everything down." She muttered. Where would it be?

--

The laptop was found in her father's study - a room she thought had been locked by her mother upon his death eight years previously.

She opened it. Mitchell had said something about a personal directory. That had a password...something about...

Fishing. Her father's favorite pastime.

Within a few moments, she'd found her way into her mother's personal files.

Almost instantly, a window appeared on the screen.

"Grace." Her sixty-seven-year-old mother greeted from the application window.

Grace inhaled sharply.

"If you're watching this, then I'm gone." She said, apologetically.

Grace's brow furrowed. How could her mother have known about her stroke?

"Grace, it's very important that you listen to what I'm about to say." She said, seriously. "I'm not sure who I can trust right now, and I guess I have reason if you're actually watching this..."

Grace's blood ran cold. Had her mother been murdered?

"Your father was looking into something before he died." She said, gravely.

Had her father been murdered as well?

Grace inhaled sharply at the possibility.

"Remember my password, Grace. It will answer all the questions you ever had." She said, cryptically.

As her eyes darted around the room, suspiciously, Sam turned the transmission off.

Grace stared at the blank screen. What was going on?

Two questions emerged as the main sources of her curiosity after the next few hours passed: How much had she been told about her childhood and what had her parents been working on?

A third question arose from the first two: whom could she trust?

Even the passing thought that Daniel, Vala, Teal'c or Mitchell could be involved in her parents' deaths made her feel paranoid. It seemed too ridiculous to be true.

Still, why hadn't her mother shared her suspicions with them?

Maybe she hadn't had a chance.

That made her blood run cold. If that was true of her mother - a virtual hermit after she'd left for the colony - then it would be true of her as well.

She bit her lip before grabbing her mother's keys and the laptop, going into the garage and getting into the car.

The drive to the Jackson house was a short one, though it felt longer than it had really been. Despite the fact that she hadn't seen anything suspicious besides her mother's behavior on the video, she had checked her mirror the whole time as she tried to verify that she wasn't being followed.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she arrived unscathed at the Jackson home. She looked over into the passenger seat, and retrieved the stylish laptop case which her mother had used to tote the computer around if she needed it.

She wasn't letting this out of her sight in case there were more clues to these mysteries on it.

She sighed as she looked at the suburban home which stood in front of her. Two of her parents' dearest friends resided in that home, and she hoped that she could trust them.

Daniel opened the door at her insistent knock. "Grace." He greeted, more than a little surprised. "What can I do for you?"

"I need some answers." She said, seriously.

He raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Of course. Come on in."

She walked into the house, and Daniel showed her into the living room.

"What's wrong?" He asked, looking at her.

"I found...a DVD..."

"Okay..."

"My mom was on it. She was telling my dad about this mission that she was on, where she was stuck in a time dilation field. The Asgard had just exploded their homeworld, she said." Grace inhaled slowly. "And she told my dad that she'd just realized that she was pregnant."

His brow was furrowed in confusion.

"Later on in the video, my mother was in the infirmary of a ship - I assume - and she had me in her arms." She said, seriously. "Now, I want to know what really happened when I was born."

"Grace, I was there. I delivered you." Daniel said, seriously. "You were born in your parents' room during after a Christmas Eve blizzard. Unless you've been on a ship since your days with the colony, you've never been on a ship."

"Then how do you explain the DVD?" She asked, looking at him intensely.

"I don't know!" He cried.

Suddenly, he stopped. "Wait...wait..."

She raised an eyebrow.

"There was a mission...it went wrong the first time..."

"The first time?" Grace asked, confused.

"Your parents had just gotten engaged." He said, thinking back to that time. "The Asgard had requested our presence at their homeworld for something; we didn't know what at the time."

Grace listened closely.

"They wanted to give us their legacy - everything they'd ever learned - before they blew up their planet."

"What does that have to do with this?" She asked after a moment.

"This was back when we were fighting the Ori." He said, thoughtfully. "The Asgard gave us some amazing technology, but the Ori could track us through hyperspace because of a unique energy signature we were emitting."

"That's a problem." She agreed.

He nodded. "Your mother came up with an idea that might buy us some time..."

"A time dilation field..."

He nodded. "As she went to start the program, however, Teal'c came out of nowhere and handed her another crystal, telling her not to start the time dilation field."

Grace's brow furrowed. "What?"

"Apparently, we had already done it, and ended up spending over fifty years in that field."

Grace's eyebrows shot up.

"Somehow, he was able to travel back in time to warn us not to go there in the first place." Daniel looked at her. "I would imagine that if your mother had already been pregnant on that mission, you would have been born there as well."

"So...this is...an alternate way that my life could have - or did, rather - go? Fatherless on a ship?"

Daniel nodded sympathetically.

She became somewhat introspective at that time, thinking for a moment about how awful it would have been not to have her father for any length of time rather than the seventeen years she'd gotten to have him for.

Suddenly, she remembered why she'd really come.

"Daniel..."

"Yes?"

"Do you think my parents' deaths were entirely natural?"

He gave her a strange look. "What?"

"Come on, Daniel...my parents made too many enemies for someone not to have thought about it. Even I know that a heart attack can be easily faked. A stroke...I'm not sure, but my mother was scared of something..."

"Grace," Daniel said, softly. "Your mother's death was tragic. She went too soon, and you're looking for meaning in her death."

She studied him, closely. Was he really going to tell her that she was crazy?

"Nobody killed her, Grace. It's sad that she's gone, but don't do this to yourself."

She bit the inside of her cheek as she looked at the floor. Daniel wasn't going to help her.

"Look, I had this crate of DVDs I was going to bring over, but I wasn't sure about whether or not you'd want to see them." He picked it up and brought it to her. "They're video logs of the missions I went on with your parents - maybe even some that Jonas made."

She looked back at him. "You won't get your parents back, but maybe you'll understand a little more of what they did..."

"Thank you, Daniel." She said, after a moment.

"No problem, Grace. Just...let us know if you need anything, okay?"

She nodded. "I think that maybe I'll...go up to the cabin."

He raised his eyebrows, curiously.

"You know...remember the good times my family had up there when we were there for the summer."

"Ah." Daniel said, nodding. "Yes, you're right. That would probably be a good thing for you. Do you want some company? I'm sure Vala and Teal'c wouldn't mind taking some time off..."

She shook her head. "No...I think I need some time to think..."

"Let us know if you need any company." He said, earnestly.

She nodded slowly. "I will." She lied.

She stood. "I should get going."

"Okay." He said with a small smile. "I hope you enjoy the DVDs."

"They'll be very helpful." She said, gratefully.

To say that the visit with Daniel had been frustrating would have been an understatement. To say that he had not helped her at all, however, would have been an overstatement. She placed the DVDs in the trunk of the car. He'd given her a place to start her investigation, and he'd given her some time to think about her mother's clue.

Fishing. Her father rarely fished in any place other than at his grandfather's cabin in Minnesota. Her mother had undoubtedly hidden whatever evidence she had to support her theory at the cabin...and it was probably in plain sight.

Probably with her father's fishing poles.

She drove back to the house as she began to feel somewhat paranoid. What if someone had come to the house? Should she even go back?

She sighed. She wouldn't be able to second-guess herself like this for too much longer. She just needed to trust her instincts.

"_Let me tell you, kiddo," her dad said, looking at her. "Sometimes, you just have to follow your gut. There's no rhyme or reason to it, but you just get this feeling in the pit of your stomach..."_

She had thought he was crazy. But now, she had this feeling in the pit of her stomach that made her feel like it was okay to go back to the house this time. This was probably the last time, though. At least, if she wanted to stay alive.

She drove to the house anxiously. Within a few moments, she had returned to the house, and hurried in.

Grabbing a bag, she threw a few sets of clothes and some toiletries into it.

She hurried back out the door, looking around one more time before she forced herself to close the door.


	8. Silence

"_Sixty-six bottles of beer on the wall! Sixty-six bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around, sixty-five bottles of beer on the wall!" She and her father sang loudly._

"_Okay, you two," Sam said with a chuckle as she looked in the rearview mirror. "That's enough. I'm trying to concentrate here."_

_Grace looked at her father for a moment before she broke out once again. "Sixty-five bottles of beer on the wall..."_

"_Grace..." Sam said, raising an eyebrow._

"_Hey, kiddo, your mom's driving. We can take a little break." Jack said with a small smile._

_She sighed. "But Dad...you said..." She whined._

"_Ah!" He protested, stopping her with a finger._

_She sighed. "Fine."_

"_How about a story before we stop for lunch?" Sam asked, looking in the mirror at her daughter._

"_A story?" She asked, looking disgusted at the thought. "No, thanks, I've heard enough of those "once there was a prince who fell in love with a beautiful princess who was kidnapped by a wicked witch. He saved her, they got married, and lived happily ever after" stories." She rolled her eyes. "Doesn't anyone tell stories that are a little more realistic?"_

_Sam looked back in the mirror, catching her husband's eye with an amused half-smile._

"_What if I told you about a world where...people still worship ancient Egyptian gods?" Jack asked, keeping eye contact with his wife as she drove._

_"Or where someone could travel to another planet in the blink of an eye?" Sam added._

_Grace looked at both of her parents strangely._

_"How about a world where a man can make the Norse god of thunder his best friend?" Jack asked with a pensive smile._

_Sam smiled tenderly. "What about a world where your dad could be healed from cancer by becoming friends with a member of another race?"_

_"What are you talking about?" Grace asked, looking at her parents._

_"What if there was a world where you could be the alien copilot in a race?" Jack said without hesitation. He liked this game._

_"What about a world where you have to play musical chairs to get back to your own body?" Sam asked with a teasing smile._

"_It's a good thing you never decided to become writers." She said, rolling her eyes. "No one would EVER buy your books."_

And yet, they'd been trying to prepare her for the truth.

It hadn't even been six months before the Stargate program had been disclosed to the public.

She had been nine years old; just old enough to realize how frightened her mother had been that day.

"_I'm ready to go to school, Mom." Grace said, walking over to her._

_Her mother turned and looked at her, a worried look in her eye. "I don't want you going to school today, Grace. I want you to stay here with me and your dad."_

"_Why?"_

_Her mother looked at the television, inhaling sharply. "There's...a speech...I think you should watch...and I want to be here to watch it with you."_

_She gave her mother a confused look._

"_It won't be for a little while, so let's bake some cookies, okay?" She asked, looking over at him. "Your dad's coming home in a little bit from his meeting. Don't you think he'll want some cookies?"_

"_I think he'll want to know why I'm not in school."_

_Her mother tensed. "Please don't fight me on this, Grace." She pleaded. "Your father and I both think it would be best if you stayed home from school today."_

"_What's going on, Mom?" She demanded._

"_Hopefully...nothing..."_

Nothing could have been farther from the truth, she remembered. It had been nearly three weeks before her parents had allowed her back to school because of the chaos that had gripped the American people at the declaration that a secret military base had been operating out of Cheyenne Mountain with a clear objective to obtain alien technology for the defense of Earth against extra-terrestrials.

Still, she'd never been scared – only confused.

"_You used to work in Cheyenne Mountain, Dad. Didn't you?"_

"_Yes." He answered. "That's where I met your mom."_

"_I read some names of team members on the internet..."_

"_I thought your mom asked you not to look that stuff up..."_

"_I couldn't help it."_

"_I know. She probably knew that too. So...ask your questions."_

"_I saw your names. Yours, Mom's, Daniel's, Murray's, Cam's, and Vala's."_

"_Yes."_

"_You were one of the first people through the Stargate, weren't you?"_

"_Yes, I was." He said, nodding._

_She sat there for a moment, processing her new information._

"_Did Mom go on the first mission?"_

_He shook his head. "No. She should have, but she didn't."_

"_Why didn't she?"_

"_Because...not everyone in the United States Air Force is as smart as you." He said, affectionately._

_She was still troubled._

"_Stay here, okay, kiddo?" Her father asked, giving her a small wink. "I'm gonna get your mom, and maybe we can talk about the Program, okay?"_

_She nodded slowly. "Okay."_

True to his word, her mother had joined them, and they'd talked for several hours about the Program.

"_Those things you told me when we were talking about stories in the car on the way to Minnesota...those were real, weren't they?"_

_Sam looked at her husband before she looked back at Grace. "Yes."_

"_Who had cancer?"_

_Jack looked at his wife before he looked back at his daughter. "Your grandpa Jacob."_

"_And this race..."_

"_The Tok'ra." Sam said, instantly._

_Jack tried not to wince at their name._

"_What is it, Dad?"_

"_Your father and I have had...unique experiences with the Tok'ra."_

"_By unique, you mean..."_

_Sam tensed as she looked at Jack as if trying to gauge his response._

"_Well, one thing you need to know about the Tok'ra before we can answer that," Jack began. "Is that the Tok'ra need a human host in order to survive."_

"_What does that mean?"_

"_It means..." Sam began as she looked at the couch. "It means that most people choose to share their bodies with these Tok'ra."_

_Grace's eyes widened._

"_Your mom and I, however, didn't exactly get a chance to really do that..."_

_Sam inhaled sharply. "I'm not sure that's exactly true...I didn't choose it, but I blended with Jolinar. You chose it, but you didn't blend with Kanan."_

"_You had aliens in your bodies?" Grace asked in horror._

"_A very long time ago, sweetheart." Sam said, gently. "Jolinar died to save my life, and Kanan left your dad when..."_

"_When it was time." Jack finished when he noticed that Sam was at a loss of words when it came to his imprisonment in Ba'al's fortress._

"_How did Grandpa Jacob die?"_

_Sam bit her lip before she looked over at her daughter. "He got sick, like we told you."_

"_But..."_

"_He AND Selmak got sick." Jack clarified._

"_Oh." She whispered after a moment. Suddenly, her head snapped back up. "Who switched bodies?"_

_This won a chuckle from each of her parents._

The time passed slowly as she made her way to the cabin. Each curve of the road, each landmark, each street sign held significance for her.

She looked at the passenger seat and then in the mirror as her parents had done countless times to see her sitting behind them.

The car felt so empty.

"I'm doing what I can, Mom." She whispered. "But you've got to help me. I don't think I know what I'm looking for."

The silence that met her ear was deafening.


	9. Irony

Nick sighed as he walked into his parents' house after doing a little grocery shopping.

He'd kissed her yesterday, and he still couldn't get it off his mind.

He'd thought that kissing Grace had been a bad idea when he'd gone to get the boxes. He'd run it over in his head a thousand times since he'd done it initially.

Now, he knew that it had been a bad idea, and was seriously thinking that maybe he should just return home to his patients. At least there, he could still do a little good.

Regardless of his pain now though, the look of pleasant surprise on her face when she'd told him, somewhat shocked, that he'd kissed her, made him hope that she could have loved him.

Perhaps with the right amount of time for her grief, and perhaps with some sort of distance for a little while, they'd be back to being friends without awkward silences.

"Nick? Is that you?" His mother called.

"Yes, mother. It's me."

Vala walked out of the sewing room with a few squares of fabric in her hands.

"What are you doing?" He asked, curiously.

"Oh, I've taken up quilting." She said with a grin. "But don't tell your father. It's a surprise for our anniversary."

"Ah." He said, nodding. "Consider it not told."

"Have you spoken to your father yet?" She asked, looking over at him.

"Uh, no. I've had a few things on my mind..."

"Oh? What sorts of things?" She asked, curiously.

"Just..." He shook his head. "What did Dad need?"

"He's worried about Grace."

He sighed. Another Grace worry. "Oh?" He finally managed.

"Apparently, she's got the notion that her parents were murdered."

Nick raised an eyebrow somewhat curiously. "What?"

She nodded. "Your father thinks she's slipping into some sort of delusion. He wanted your opinion on how to handle it."

"Where is he?"

"At Cheyenne Mountain. He wanted to check on a few things while they'll still let him in."

"Why wouldn't they?"

"Well, he's retiring in a few months. If he doesn't get answers now, he may never get answers."

"Where's Grace?"

"I think she said she was going up to the cabin to commune with her memories."

Nick cursed inwardly. "Look, a heart attack can be easily faked with a potassium overdose and a stroke...well, I've seen more than a few devices come through the hospital that were developed by Area 51 scientists for the general public which could easily induce a stroke if someone tampered with them."

"You don't think it could be true, do you?" Vala asked, studying her son seriously.

"Mom, if anything happened to you or Dad, I would wonder." He said, honestly. "All of the former members of SG-1 made more than their share of enemies on this planet and throughout the universe."

"Probably me more than anyone else." She said, thoughtfully.

"Mom..."

"I'm sorry." She apologized instantly.

"An Air Force general, who was probably in better shape at seventy-five than I am at twenty-seven, dies of a heart attack, and eight years later, his wife, one of the most intelligent women I have ever known, dies of a stroke." He said, seriously. "Either God has a wicked sense of irony or there's something else at work."

"What are you going to do, Nicholas?"

"I'm going to get Grace. If her parents' deaths weren't natural, then she shouldn't be alone."


	10. Coverup

"Hello, Dr. Jackson," one of the archeology lab assistants greeted as he walked into the lab. "I was sorry to hear about Colonel Carter. It's a shame to lose such a smart woman."

Daniel looked over at her. "Thanks." He said after a moment.

She turned back to her work, and he looked out over the rest of the room, trying to decide where he needed to go to get the information he needed. And what excuse he was going to use to get it.

"Just terrible how most of the first generation of SGC leaders have passed onto the other side..."

Daniel's head turned instantly at her words. "What?"

She looked at him. "What?"

"You said something about how most of the first generation of SGC leaders have passed to the other side..."

"Well, you know...it really started with Colonel Reynolds' heart attack in '24. Then General Hammond's accident, General O'Neill's heart attack, Colonel Paul Davis's psychotic break..."

"Whose what?"

"Colonel Paul Davis...he used to serve as the liaison between the Program and the Pentagon."

"Psychotic break?"

She nodded. "He apparently tried to kill his wife. The police shot him instead."

His eyes widened. "Davis? He couldn't hurt a fly. He could be a little impatient, but..."

"They say it was Post-Traumatic Stress."

"From what? A negotiation with the Russians?" Daniel asked, confused.

She shrugged. "He's a soldier. They deal with stuff like that, right?"

Daniel's own suspicions were being raised that a serial killer or massive coverup had instigated a string of murders within the SGC.


	11. Experiments?

The moment that the cabin door opened, she could smell the musky scent of dust, Old Spice, and cigars. Apparently, her great-grandfather O'Leary could be held accountable for the cigar scent.

"_It never comes out" her mother had ranted once, but her father had just smiled._

"_It smells like home." He said, taking a big whiff._

_Her mother had rolled her eyes as she opened windows and tried to air out some of the old upholstery. "Maybe we should just get some new furniture."_

"_I don't think so." Jack countered. "My grandfather furnished this place, and unless it's in pieces, it's not going anywhere."_

"_That can be arranged." Sam said with a teasing smile._

_Her mother would never do it, but Grace had no doubt that her mother could do it if she wanted. Her mother could do anything._

Grace shook the memory from her mind. Where is it? She asked herself. Where was the evidence?

Suddenly, something caught her eye. The silly singing trout that her dad had put up in the kitchen wasn't there anymore.

"What did you do with it, Mom?" She asked, looking around the small cabin.

Suddenly, she spotted it above the fireplace.

She pursed her lips in concentration as she walked over and reached for it. The mounted, plastic trout came down easily, and Grace turned it around.

"That's thinking, Mom." She said as she realized that the wooden mount the trout was on had been made hollow, and papers stuffed into the belly of it.

She dropped the trout unceremoniously on the coffee table as she sat down in her great-grandfather's armchair to read the notes which were scribbled in her father's hand.

She regretted it almost instantly when it began singing "Don't Worry, Be Happy" over and over again.

She shook her head. Focus, Grace. Focus.

_8/14/24 _

_Reynolds – fatal heart attack after return from P6X-421_

_What happened on mission?_

The next paper seemed to hold more information.

_8/18/24_

_Meeting with Hammond suggests foothold situation. SGC compromised when SG-3 returned from P6X-421. Got call from Reynolds two days before heart attack. No details – meeting planned, but attack killed Reynolds first._

Her blood chilled. Foothold...her dad had explained that to her. Alien takeover. That's what foothold meant.

She continued reading.

_8/19/24_

_Hammond dead – Broke neck in fall down stairs_

_Check with local authorities and investigation_

_Check security logs at SGC RE: Reynolds_

_Tell Sam after meeting with President about situation_

_Get rid of bad guys_

Grace remembered her dad's meeting with the President. He'd been quite anxious, and even her mother had seemed perplexed about his nervousness.

"_You've met the President before, Jack. This isn't anything new."_

"_Yeah, but I haven't had to go in when I wasn't in the Pentagon before."_

"_Why are you doing this, Jack?" She asked, curiously._

_He sighed. "Unfortunately, for now, that's classified."_

"_Classified?" She asked, confused. "What's going on, Jack?"_

"_Sam, there's something...there's something I'm looking into right now. When I get back, I'll tell you all about it, okay?"_

"_Dad, are you going to be back in time for the musical?" Grace asked, looking at her dad. "It opens this weekend, and I bought us all tickets to see it. Matthew's in it."_

_He looked at his daughter with a strange look in his eyes. It was a unique combination of sadness and worry and hope. "I'll be there." He promised, his voice breaking._

_Grace looked at her mother confused, but she got a mere shrug in response._

Her father had died two days later when he returned before she and her mother had returned from the performance at the high school.

She bit her lip as she turned the page.

Her mother's notes were next. For the hundredth time, Grace wondered why it had taken her mother so long to realize that her father hadn't simply died a natural death.

Could it have been her grief clouding her for so long? She shook her head. Her mother would have welcomed an investigation.

Could it be that her mother had been working on this for eight years?

She shook her head. That was almost more unlikely than the first thought.

Perhaps, like herself, her mother had forgotten about her father's agitation – he'd hid it fairly well, after all.

Still, that was also quite unlikely.

Then, she thought of something. One of the side effects of that memory device her mother, Mitchell, Daniel, Teal'c, and Vala had brought back from an alien planet twenty years ago was that every so often, one of the users would suffer a stroke – not necessarily immediately afterward, but sometimes years in the future.

Grace gasped. This had to have been a cover-up from the beginning. Her mother's fate had probably been sealed eight years ago.

She forced herself to look back at the notes. Instantly, she was grateful that these were a little more detailed than her father's.

_I checked Reynolds', Hammond's, and Jack's autopsies. Coroner stated that there was nothing out of the ordinary._

_Still, SGC personnel have been dying over the past eight years – not offworld, but here on Earth._

_Reynolds – Heart Attack – 8/14/24  
Hammond – Fall Stairs – 8/19/24  
Jack – Heart Attack – 8/25/24  
Davis – Psychotic break; shot during attack on wife – 4/16/25  
Walter – Car accident – 7/8/26  
Barrett (NID director) – Mugging – 12/6/26  
Landry – Personal Plane Crash – 5/29/28  
Dr. Lee – Stroke – 4/7/29  
Major Lorne (upon transfer to SGC) – lab explosion – 10/13/30  
Hailey – car accident (comatose) – 5/13/31*_

She could now add another name to the list, she thought. _Samantha Carter – Stroke – 9/26/32._

Just then, she noticed the asterisk by Hailey's name. What did it mean?

Her mother's notes continued after the list.

_*Major Jennifer Hailey called me only a few hours before the accident. She stated that something was strange at the SGC. She said that the SGC was participating in experiments that resembled those done by the rogue members of the NID._

NID? Grace asked herself somewhat confused. Barrett had been the NID director according to her mother's notes. Had he sanctioned any of these experiments? Had the IOA become involved with these rogue NID agents?

She wasn't the right person to do this, she sighed. She needed the original SG-1 members. She needed her parents.


	12. Colonies

When the phone rang in the silent house, Vala had given up on her project. She was too worried about Grace and Nick to really focus anymore.

"Hello?" She asked instantly.

"Vala, it's me." Daniel said, urgently.

"Daniel!" She cried in relief. "Nicholas has been trying to reach you."

"I turned my cell phone off so that I could concentrate." He apologized. "Look, I'm headed home, and I'm bringing Teal'c. I think you, Nicholas, Teal'c, Grace and I need to talk. There's something going on."

"It's not going to happen." Vala said, instantly. "Grace is at the cabin, we think, and Nicholas went to protect her."

Daniel cursed angrily. "Pack a bag for each of us, Vala. We're going to Minnesota."

-

Nick picked up a rental car at the airport upon landing in Minneapolis. He hoped he remembered how to get to the O'Neill cabin from here.

In reality, he had been rather surprised that it had only taken him four hours to drive to Denver, book a flight, wait for the flight, and fly into Minnesota. If he needed to stop and ask for directions, he still felt he'd get there in a reasonable amount of time.

As long as someone wasn't following her, he thought to himself.

He shook his head. "Focus, Jackson. There's no room to wish for something different. That just leads to mistakes."

He needed to get into his Emergency Room mindset – where he didn't question his actions, just did them as quickly as he knew how.

Within a few moments, he found himself in an area which he recognized. He'd get to the cabin in only a few more minutes.

He only hoped it would be fast enough.

His heart pounded in worry at the thought that he might not be there in time to protect her from whatever threat may have taken her parents' lives.

He increased the pressure on the gas pedal instantly. He needed to get there sooner rather than later.

-

Grace sat on the floor, her legs crossed in front of her as she tried to perform the kel'noreem ritual that Teal'c had taught her years ago. She closed her eyes as she tried to imagine her mind was actually a building with many different doors which each held a portion of her memory. Hopefully, her parents had mentioned the NID at some point so that she could have at least an idea of what she was up against.

The sharp rap of an urgent knock caused her to jump.

"Grace! Open the door!"

Her heart was racing as she realized that the voice she heard belonged to Nick.

She stood, her knees shaking as she walked to the door. "Nick..." She whispered as she opened the door.

"Grace. Thank God you're all right." He said, hugging her tightly.

She held onto him tightly. "Nick," she whispered as tears welled up in her eyes. "I thought you were..."

"I'm sorry. I tried calling your mom's cell, but you weren't answering..."

"I turned it off so no one could track me..."

"You're so smart." He said, running his fingers through her hair, grateful that he hadn't just discovered yet another body in the apparently long list of victims.

She pulled away from him, getting back down to business. "Maybe you can help me with this..."

"Okay." He said, managing to collect himself again. "Grace, my mom told me about your theory."

She looked at him somewhat nervously. "Do you think I'm crazy?"

He shook his head. "No, but I am curious about how you came to that conclusion."

She bit her lip before she reached for her mother's laptop. She played the message for him, waiting for his reaction.

"That's pretty powerful evidence." He said after a moment.

"I thought so." She said, softly.

"What did you need my help for again?" He asked, looking over at her.

"Right..." She said, rubbing her forehead for a moment. She'd just realized she'd forgotten to go to bed last night – she'd been too wound up about this mystery.

"Grace..." He prompted again.

"Uh, what do you know about the NID?"

"Only that our parents brought down a rogue faction of the organization before either of us was born." He said, looking over at her.

"Damn." She sighed. There went one theory.

"Why?"

She sighed. "My mother hid notes here in the cabin. One of the notes was that Major Jennifer Hailey had called her before she was involved in a car accident a year ago that left her comatose." She showed him the notes. "It says that Hailey told her that the SGC was running experiments that would have been sanctioned by this rogue faction, but I don't know what that means."

He bit his lip in concentration. "Well, what changed a year ago in the program?"

"That's just it. The only thing I know about are the colonies."

He paled. "Which was started a year ago."

"You don't think..." She whispered as he looked at her.

"Grace, I don't know." He said, seriously. "But you have to wonder why they waited nearly thirty-five years to send families through the Stargate."

She felt sick to her stomach as she looked at him, worriedly. "You mean we were doing something we shouldn't have been doing?"

"What were you doing?"

She inhaled. "Uh, well...we had a lot of exploring to do. We'd learned just enough about the planet to know that it was relatively similar to Earth. It orbited a yellow star, it was roughly the same distance from its sun. Uh, the planet went through seasons like Earth does..."

"So, they were trying to put you on a planet similar to Earth?"

"I think that's a safe assessment."

"Why would someone do that?" He asked, seriously. "Why would you have a group of people leave their home planet only to go to one almost exactly like it?"

"I don't know."

"What experiments were you running?"

"I was working on something to do with various forms of electromagnetic waves."

"Tell me about that." He prompted almost instantly.

"Well, we were working on a way of harnessing electromagnetic waves on Earth."

He looked at her, somewhat confused.

"Okay," she said, preparing to explain it to him. "Our atmosphere here on Earth blocks some of the energy waves sent through the universe."

"Okay...like some awesome shield, right?"

"Exactly," she nodded. "But the atmosphere gets in the way sometimes."

He looked at her, confused.

"For example, when we want to look at stars and judge their distance from us, it takes something like the Hubble and Webb telescopes that is actually in Earth's orbit so that we can get more realistic pictures of stars, planets, and galaxies."

He nodded, following her very slowly.

"We've figured out how to use radio waves to better understand our galaxy by using a technique of mathematically compensating for the atmospheric anomalies."

"Okay..."

"My superiors were hoping there might be a way of harnessing the power of the other electromagnetic waves and basically send the power through the atmosphere, even if we don't use the actual waves themselves."

"There's got to be a reason why our atmosphere protects us from those waves."

She nodded. "Yes, but if there's a way to harness the energy being absorbed by our atmosphere, we could theoretically revolutionize the energy industry.

He nodded. "Okay."

"On the planet I was working," she explained. "Some ultraviolet rays are able to penetrate the atmosphere. This has changed what we thought about ultraviolet rays. We thought they were too radioactive for our atmosphere, but this is making us question our initial assumptions. I mean, it is radioactive, but maybe it's not quite AS radioactive as we'd thought at first. Maybe our atmosphere can handle a little bit of radiation and it won't kill us..."

"Right away..." He said, inhaling.

"In short, we're trying to figure out what the difference is between Earth and this other planet. The colony on '745 is studying something similar, but instead of ultraviolet rays, they have Gamma rays."

"How many different kinds of electromagnetic waves are there?"

"Um...let's see: visible light, radio waves, ultraviolet rays, Gamma rays, x-rays, microwaves and infrared."

"Which ones can't get past the atmosphere?"

"Um, only the last five."

He paled. "How many colonies are there again?"

"Uh, five...last time I counted..."

"What would happen if we could harness the power of all seven forms of electromagnetic waves?"

She stared at him in horror. "Even with our margin or error, you could easily destroy all life on this planet..."

"Exactly." A woman said as she walked through the one of the cabin walls.

Grace's eyes widened as she stepped back and bumped into Nick who caught her with his hands, equally as concerned about the situation.


	13. Worry

"Dammit, Vala! I told you I knew where I was going!"

"You missed the turn, Daniel!" She insisted.

"She is correct." Teal'c said, stoically from the backseat.

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Look...time is of the essence. T, YOU drive."

He nodded in acquiescence as Daniel pulled over. They changed places, and Teal'c began driving as Daniel sighed.

"They're probably just talking, Daniel." Vala consoled.

He looked over at her. "Vala, I just...I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don't know if they are all right..."

She opened her mouth to speak, but he continued. "I would love to be wrong, Vala." He said, swallowing. "But...I'm not sure I am."

She inhaled, hoping that he was wrong.

-

"Who are you?" Grace finally demanded as she gathered the strength to speak to the ethereal-looking woman with golden hair that fell in soft curls to her back. She would have looked like a Greek goddess in a white satin gown that fell to her ankles if she didn't have red fire in her eyes.

"Do you not already know?" She asked, standing in front of them in terrible majesty.

"We don't know anything." Nick added from just behind Grace.

"I disagree." She said with a icy omniscience. "You seem to know quite a lot between the two of you." She stepped closer to Grace, and looked deeply into her eyes, causing Grace to shudder involuntarily. "You really are very clever for a human." She said, quietly. "Perhaps even more clever than your parents."

"Who are you?" Grace asked again, returning the woman's intense gaze with one of her own.

"You do not need to know who I am." She said, walking away somewhat haughtily. "All you must know is that I am not from this planet."

"You're from P6X-421." She said, thinking on her feet.

"Yes, that is what your planet calls us." She said, nodding. "We call ourselves by another name, however."

"That was a given." Nick said, following Grace's lead. "What name would that be?"

She turned around and offered them an amused smile. "Did you believe that I would be so easy to manipulate?"

Grace's heart began to pound in her ears as she saw the woman look at the room around her.

"This is a treacherous place to spend one's free time." She said, after a moment. "So many...accidents...could be...arranged..."

Grace felt a shiver down her spine.

"You killed them." She whispered. "All of them. Colonel Reynolds, Colonel Davis, General Hammond, Major Hailey, my parents...you killed them all..."

"Colonel Davis was the simplest of them all." She said with a sneer. "A simple injection of an untraceable hallucinogen, and he was the maker of his own demise."

Nick swallowed hard.

"What is your plan exactly?" Grace asked after taking a moment to compose herself.

"That, you have figured out."

"Destroy Earth for destruction's sake?"

"There are resources in this solar system which my planet could use." She said, matter-of-factly.

"Our planet has the most resources of the entire solar system – why do you want to destroy us?" Nick asked, confused.

" This world may be sufficient for your needs." She said, raising an eyebrow. "But it is a simple annoyance for my people."

"So, you're just going to destroy the whole planet?" Nick asked, incredulously.

"Are you not a physician?" She asked, looking at him, seriously.

He was stunned. "Uh...y...yes..."

"When your patient is suffering a malady, do you not occasionally simply remove the organ which troubles him?"

"That's a very rare..."

"Yet, it is a commonplace occurrence, is it not?"

Grace sighed as she nodded. "Yes. It is."

"Then perhaps, you can understand our reasons."

"But there are...six billion people on the planet!" Nick cried.

"Enough!" She said, raising her hand. In an instant, he'd been thrust against the wall.

Grace turned in time to see him slump to the floor. "Nick!" She cried as she ran to him. A simple pulse check reassured her that her friend was still alive.

She turned and looked back at her captor; she couldn't be goa'uld – she had no hand device. She couldn't be an Ori – they'd been destroyed. What was she?

Her captor was closing her eyes, but looking heavenward with her bare arms outstretched as if she was receiving some sort of heaven-bestowed power. Finally, she looked back at Grace with an evil smile. "Now...to our real business."


	14. Fire

"It's about time..." Daniel said as they finally reached the woods which housed the O'Neill cabin.

Vala looked out the window as she sighed inwardly. She was so worried about her son and Grace. Suddenly, she saw smoke rising from the nearby woods.

"Daniel..." Vala said, worriedly.

"What?" He asked, looking at his wife.

She pointed at the smoke that rose to the sky only a mile or two away.

He raised his eyebrows worriedly. "Isn't that about where Jack's cabin is?"

Wordlessly, Teal'c pulled over and got out, realizing that they would be safer if he got out and ran as opposed to gunning it and potentially getting into an accident.

Daniel and Vala followed the Jaffa at a considerably slower pace.

The orange and yellow flames were the first things he was able to see; the cabin's roof was on fire.

Still, Teal'c saw the red Corvette and an unfamiliar car.

"Grace O'Neill!" Teal'c called instantly. "Nicholas Jackson!"

"Nicholas!" Vala yelled, anxiously.

"Grace!" Daniel cried, loudly.

They received no response.

"They're here!" Daniel called. "They've got to be here!"

Teal'c nodded as he prepared to enter the burning cabin. With little effort, he broke down the door.

Instantly, he saw Nick's limp body lying on the floor there in the living room. Within a moment, he'd picked him up. He hurried to the open door when a falling beam blocked their escape.

With stinging eyes and a cough, he looked around the room. There, he saw the door to the pond. He looked up above the door. He had one shot to get out.

"GRACE O'NEILL!" He called.

Again, there was no answer.

Teal'c hesitated for a moment before he rushed to the door and broke it down. As they escaped to fresh air, the entire roof collapsed in on the house.

"NO!" Teal'c cried, turning around to see the destruction as the fire department finally arrived. Just a few more moments, he mourned, and he would have been able to return to look for and save Grace O'Neill.

-

The fire had been put out within the hour, and Daniel sighed as he looked over at Teal'c. "Thanks..." He finally managed.

Teal'c looked back to where Vala was watching as the paramedics cared for the unconscious and burned form of her son. "You are welcome, Daniel Jackson."

His tone was somewhat melancholy as he thought of Grace.

"Teal'c, you couldn't have done anything more than you did." Daniel whispered, hollowly.

Teal'c was silent.

"And...if she didn't make it out..." He began somewhat slowly. "Well...she's probably with her parents as we speak..."

Teal'c was again silent.

"I'm going to see if I can help the authorities search the forest for her..." Daniel said, after a moment.

"We have already surveyed the area, Daniel Jackson. I do not believe she is out here."

Daniel sighed. "We've got to do something, right?"

Teal'c raised an eyebrow before he nodded.

Daniel approached his wife. "Teal'c and I are going to join the search – see if Grace managed to get out of the cabin..."

Vala nodded somewhat numbly. "All right."

"I've got my phone." He said, seriously. "Call me if something changes with Nick."

She nodded. "I will."

He bit his lip as he looked back at the house. "And...call me if they find..."

"I will." She interrupted before he could say anything else.

He nodded, soberly, before he gently kissed her, and turned back to his friend. "Let's go, Teal'c. We've got a job to do."


	15. Remembering

Daniel walked into Nick's hospital room to find Vala resting her head on the bed, unable to keep her eyes open any longer as she waited for him to awaken. He gently touched her shoulder. "Vala..." He whispered.

She gasped lightly as she awoke suddenly. Her head snapped up, and nearly hit Daniel, but he moved ever so slightly to avoid a collision.

"It's just me." He said, softly.

She looked over at him. "Daniel..."

"Hey." He said with an affectionate, but tired, smile.

"Hey." She said, sitting back in her chair as she tried to smooth out her appearance.

"I saw Nick's doctor outside." He said, softly.

She nodded soberly as she looked back at her son. "Concussion from a blow to the head, some minor smoke inhalation, and a few second degree burns..."

"Has he woken up yet?"

She shook her head. "No, but he should sometime soon."

"Have you gotten anything to eat?" He asked, gently.

She shook her head. "I'm fine."

"Let me get something from the cafeteria for you..."

She shook her head. "Daniel, I'm fine."

She inhaled slowly as she looked behind them. "Where's Teal'c?"

Daniel sighed. "The cabin is completely destroyed, but they're pretty sure that Nick was the only one inside since they haven't found a body yet."

"Then, where is she?"

"Teal'c's vowed to personally comb the forest for her."

"What if someone set the fire and took Grace too?" Vala asked, looking at him with worry lining her face.

"Then, I guess we need Nick to wake up and tell us if he knows something." He said, softly. "I highly doubt that Grace is the one who shoved him into the wall."

She nodded soberly. "I know."

He studied her for a moment. "He's going to be all right, Vala. You need to believe that."

She bit her lip as she looked down at her lap and nodded quickly.

"Hey." He said, gently touching her chin. "Look at me..."

She looked up.

"He's going to be okay." He said, softly.

"I hope so."

"I'm going to be fine, Mom." Nick managed hoarsely from the bed beside them. "Trust me, I'm a doctor."

"Nicholas!" Vala cried, looking over.

"Hi, Mom." He said, managing a small smile though his eyes were closed.

"How are you feeling? Can we get something for you?" Vala cried in a relieved frenzy.

"Mom...Mom..." He protested. "I have a headache..."

"Right." She said, more quietly. "What can I get for you?"

"Grace." He said, his mind swimming in incomprehension. "Where's Grace?"

"We were hoping that you could tell us that." Daniel said, exchanging glances with Vala after a moment.

"What?" He asked, looking over at them.

"When Teal'c found you, the cabin was on fire. It collapsed in on itself after he got you out."

"What?" Nick asked, looking over at his dad. "You mean, she's..."

"No, no, no, no..." Daniel said, shaking his head as he realized how his last statement could sound. "They haven't found a body, so we're pretty sure she wasn't there with you."

Nick closed his eyes as he pressed his palm to his forehead, trying to remember what had happened before he'd gone unconscious. "Uh...there was this...paper..."

"What was on the paper?"

"Some...note...from Sam..." He struggled. "Lots of...people...from the SGC..."

"Died. We know." Daniel said, nodding. "What else?"

He grimaced as he tried to think even more.

"Daniel, maybe we should let him rest." Vala said, touching his arm.

"No!" Nick cried. "It's important!"

"Your mother's right." Daniel said, looking over at his son. "You need to rest."

"We need to find Grace." Nick said with determination in his eyes. "I can rest when she's home safely."

Daniel and Vala turned to one another with soft sighs. He'd become as stubborn as them both. Vala looked back at him, worriedly. By now, he'd closed his eyes again, concentrating all of his energy on remembering what had happened in that cabin.

She felt a gentle pull on her arm, and looked up to see her husband motioning for her to follow him to the other end of the room.

She followed, and he sighed as they arrived. "I don't think he's going to remember much more for a little while."

She nodded. "I agree. His mind is too clouded by the concussion."

"Not to mention the smoke inhalation."

She nodded again, soberly.

"I feel like an idiot mentioning Grace..."

"He asked." Vala reminded him.

"I know, but I should have..."

"Should have what, Daniel?" She asked, looking at him squarely. "Lied to him?"

He sighed. "I should have at least known what to do."

"Daniel..."

He waved his hand. "I didn't bring you over here to talk about that."

Her brow furrowed.

"He's not going to rest until we know what he knows, right?"

"I think we've established that." She said, nodding.

"And every minute she's gone increases the likelihood that we'll find her body in an alley somewhere, right?"

"So I've heard."

He inhaled. "Maybe we need to use the memory scanner that we got from the Galarans."

She shook her head violently. "No...no..."

"Vala..."

"That device has a thirty percent chance of inducing a stroke in a healthy adult." She snapped. "And a third of those strokes don't happen until years have passed!"

"Only if you actually graft in new memories."

"I still don't like it."

"Neither do I. He's not exactly a prime candidate, but we don't have too many other options. We don't have one of the Tok'ra memory recall devices, and..."

Vala bit her lip, and Daniel noticed. "We...do have a Tok'ra memory recall device?"

She inhaled. "I carry it with me in case..."

"In case what?"

"In case we need it..."

"For what?" Daniel asked, incredulously. "How often do we walk down the street and..."

"I've been forgetting things, Daniel." She interrupted. "Important things, and I got this from one of my contacts off-world."

He looked at her, shocked. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that there are...a number of reasons I should have this device in my purse, and it's a good thing I do." She said, retrieving the device.

"Vala..."

"Daniel, please." She whispered with tears pooling in her eyes. "Not now."

He opened his mouth before he closed it again, accepted the device from her outstretched hand, and looked back at her. "We're not finished talking about this..." He managed.

"I know." She whispered.

He finally turned back to his son. "Nick..."

"Grace and I were talking...but I can't remember what it was about..." He said, frustrated.

"Nick!" Daniel pressed.

"I just know it was very important."

"Nicholas!" Daniel cried again, catching his son's attention. "This is a memory recall device which we got from the Tok'ra."

Nick looked confused.

"It's not as sophisticated as the device we got from the Galarans, but it's also safer."

"You want to help me remember..."

He nodded. "The sooner you remember, the sooner you can rest."

"And the sooner I remember, the sooner Grace is home safely."

Daniel nodded slowly. "Yes."

"Do it." He said, instantly.

"Nick, it's..."

"It's what, Dad?"

He remembered what the device had felt like...it had been painful...an experience he had never wanted to have again – which had come to him at least twice that he could recall. "It's more...painful...than the other..."

Nick looked at his father. "I trust you, Dad."

Daniel inhaled before he implanted the device in his son's temple with trembling fingers.


	16. Dreams

_She walked into the Gate room, her stomach alive with butterflies as she contemplated taking her first trip through the Stargate. She looked back, relieved to see her mother standing in the control room with a proud smile on her face._

"_Chevron 7 locked." The gate technician announced as the ring lit up and a blue water-like emission shot through the Stargate only to settle back in the ring._

_Grace inhaled sharply as she stared at the event horizon. In just a few moments, she would be crossing that event horizon and find herself on another planet._

"_Cool..." She finally whispered breathlessly._

_She looked back to wave at her mother, but instead the woman from before stood only a few feet away from her with fury in her eyes._

"What experiments have you performed on the planet?" She heard as she regained consciousness.

"I...don't know...what you're talking about..." She managed. She felt groggy and confused. They must have drugged her.

"Answer me!" She shouted, angrily.

"If you've truly infiltrated the SGC, then you would know." She antagonized, trying to determine where she was.

The woman opened her mouth and an unearthly sound passed through her lips as it echoed in Grace's ears. With each echo, Grace felt her mind slip further and further into oblivion.

"_Dr. O'Neill."_

_Grace looked over to find Dr. Harry Nielsen standing at the door._

"_Yes, Dr. Nielsen?"_

"_Colonel Gregory wanted to have a word with you."_

_Her eyebrows raised, curiously. "I'll be right there."_

_He nodded. "I'll let him know."_

_She quickly cleaned up her workspace before she walked to the tent which housed the colony leader, Colonel Marion Gregory._

"_Colonel Gregory?" She asked, walking over to where the woman sat, reading a report._

_The strict-looking woman looked up._

"_I was told you were looking to see me." She informed._

"_Oh." She said, nodding. "Come on over here."_

_Grace walked over._

"_I was looking at your report."_

"_Was there a problem with it?"_

_The Colonel shook her head. "No. Actually, it was quite well-written."_

"_Thank you."_

"_I did, however, have a question about your findings."_

"_Okay..."_

"_You said that you're finding some ultraviolet rays in the atmosphere. Is that going to be dangerous for our crew?"_

_She shook her head. "I don't believe so. It's only a trace amount that are managing to come through the atmosphere, so I don't think we need to worry."_

"_You're sure?"_

"_I've had Dr. Pearson run tests to check on each individual's radiation levels. So far, he hasn't said anything about it being detrimental."_

_She nodded. "Smart thinking, O'Neill."_

"_Thank you, ma'am."_

"_You seem to be headed onward and upward. Just like your parents."_

_She blushed. "Thank you, Colonel."_

"_Now, one more thing before you're dismissed."_

"_Yes, ma'am?"_

"_One of the project proposals I received from the lab was regarding some sort of device which could harness the power of these ultraviolet rays..."_

"_Yes, ma'am." Grace nodded. "Like solar energy on Earth, this could revolutionize the energy industry."_

"_Assuming we could harness it on Earth, correct?"_

_She nodded. "Our hope is to harness the rays we have at our disposal here, and then find some way to bypass the atmosphere and transmit the energy from satellites."_

_She nodded. "All right then. Sounds lofty, but somewhat practical. I'll send the request on to Earth."_

"_Thank you." She said with a grin._

_Grace walked back to her lab. There on her desk were the plans and calculations which she had put away before her meeting. She inhaled sharply. Something strange was going on._

_She turned around, trying to catch one of her colleagues, but instead, she caught a glimpse of a woman wearing a white gown as she disappeared._

_Something told Grace that she was being manipulated. Now, how to stop it..._


	17. Recollection

_She was seven years old; he was nine years old. It was Halloween. He'd wanted to be a pirate; she'd wanted to be a princess._

_Their parents had decided to go trick-or-treating together and then have a small get-together at the O'Neill house._

_They walked just a few steps in front of their parents along the route. After the first several houses, they turned to cross the street. Grace grabbed his hand instantly. He looked at her, confused._

"_We have to hold hands when we cross the street." She said, matter-of-factly._

"_What else do we need to do?" Sam asked, taking her other hand._

"_Look both ways." She said, demonstrating what she meant as she turned her head to the right, then to the left, and back to the right. She grinned at him as her head turned to face him.  
_

"_Good job, Grace." Jack said with a proud smile._

"What are you seeing?" Daniel asked, looking at his son.

"The moment when I realized I wanted to marry Grace."

Daniel bit his lip. "Nick, you've got to move forward...think about what she's told you about the case..."

_"We're pretty lucky," Nick said as he stood beside her._

_She barely acknowledged his statement by looking at him out of the corner of her eye for a moment._

_"I mean, we were raised by people who understood the world as it was - not what they thought it to be."_

_"Yeah." She finally muttered, turning from the bookshelves._

"Anything?"

"Not yet." He said, shaking his head.

_Something about death – and the SGC. O'Neill – a heart attack, Carter – a stroke, uh...Hailey – comatose after a car accident..._

"Something about experiments that the SGC wouldn't have sanctioned before..."

Daniel's brow furrowed. "What experiments? The only thing I could think of that is out of the ordinary is the...uh...colonies."

"_What changed a year ago in the program?"_

_"That's just it. The only I know about is the colony."_

_He paled. "Which was started a year ago."_

_"You don't think..." She whispered as he looked at her._

_"Grace, I don't know." He said, seriously. "But you have to wonder why they waited nearly thirty-five years to send families through the Stargate."_

_She felt sick to her stomach as she looked at him, worriedly. "You mean we were doing something we shouldn't have been doing?"_

"The colonies...they were doing something...some sort of experiment..."

_"On the planet I was working," she explained. "Some ultraviolet rays are able to penetrate the atmosphere. This has changed what we thought about ultraviolet rays. We thought they were too radioactive for our atmosphere, but this is making us question our initial assumptions. I mean, it is radioactive, but maybe it's not quite AS radioactive as we'd thought at first."_

He looked at his dad. "Something about electromagnetic waves that the atmosphere filters out...and harnessing them for some sort of energy..."

Daniel's eyebrows raised instantly.

He remembered a woman in white...and then he remembered pain. "I think there was a woman in the cabin. She was dressed like a Greek goddess, and she..."

_The woman stepped through the walls, making Grace step back toward him._

"I think she could walk through walls and had some...psychic powers or something..."

Daniel looked at his wife as he thought. "There was a demi-goddess in the Greek mythology that was believed to possibly be the mother of the Amazons. Her name was Ortera."

"She never told us her name." Nick said, shaking his head. "She said we weren't worthy."

"The Amazons were said to live in Pontus...we thought that was a place in Turkey, but it could be a...ship...or something..."

"How did she get here?" Vala asked, looking between her husband and son.

"Foothold situation." Nick said, suddenly.

Their eyes widened. "Foothold situation? When? From where?"

"I...uh...don't know...that paper..." Nick said, thinking hard.

_"You're from P6X-421." Grace said, thinking on her feet._

"P6X-421." He finally said, looking up at his dad. "Colonel Reynolds...Jack thought his heart attack wasn't natural..."

"Ten years?" Daniel asked, staring at his son in an absolute stupor. "This alien has waited for ten YEARS?"

"Only eight." Nick said, feeling his strength drain from him.

"Daniel..." Vala said, pulling him from his shock. "Nicholas is..."

Daniel looked at Nick. "Oh...sorry..." He said, looking over. "I think we have enough, unless you can think of anything else..."

Nick shook his head, feeling tired.

"Let me get that." He said, carefully turning off the device and removing it.

Almost instantly, Nick began blinking quickly. "I think I'm...going to...pass out now..." He said as his head dropped to the pillow again.

Vala inhaled as she stepped over to her son's bedside.

Daniel bit his lip. "I've got to get someone to look for a ship in the atmosphere..."

"Can you trust anyone?" She asked after a moment.

He inhaled. "I...I guess I don't know." He admitted.

She looked at him for a moment. "What about Major Hailey?"

"She's comatose, Vala."

"And I could use a hand device." She said, simply.

"Vala..."

"Daniel..." She said, seriously. "I don't think we have many other options."

"Who stays with Nick while we go back to Colorado?"

"Teal'c." She said, softly.

He inhaled. "I don't like this, Vala."

"Well...we don't have very many other options, do we?" She said with an air of finality.

He looked over at her. "Vala, Sam once told me that using the hand device could be rather...draining, and if you're not feeling..."

She placed a finger on his lips. "When you were possessed by Merlin, Cameron told me something I'll never forget." She inhaled as she tried to recall it. "He told me that the hard part of being on SG-1 was not risking your own life, but watching your friends risk theirs." She swallowed before she looked back up at him. "If Nicholas was the one captured, and we were the ones unable to protect him, Samantha and Jack would have done the same for us."

He nodded, slowly.

She managed a small smile. "It's going to be all right, Daniel."

"I hope so." He said, seriously. "We've seen enough death and destruction at this...woman's hand..."


	18. False Information

_Grace walked over to the commissary from the command tent, trying to find a way to outsmart the presumably "all-seeing" spy in her mind._

_She started taking notice of the people around her. Some of them, she knew had been in the colony, but others, she only recognized from her parents' old photographs from their days at the SGC._

_Suddenly, she felt more suspicious about the whole situation. Someone was fishing through her mind rather clumsily in order to put together this scenario as a way to retrieve the information which she guarded closely within the depths of her consciousness._

_She bit her lip, worriedly. What could she do?_

_Finally, she walked over to one of the scientists whom she did not recognize as members of the colony. "Dr. Pierce," she greeted, falsifying the name by which she called the silver-haired man in a lab coat.  
_

_He looked over at her from where he stood in line to retrieve his lunch. "Yes?"_

"_Did you get the report I sent you?" She asked, picking up her plate of food._

"_Uh...maybe...what was it about again?" He asked, genuinely perplexed._

_Confirmation that this was a set-up. They'd only had one mission on the colony.  
_

"_The simulations for the energy project." She said, casually. "I finished them up the other day."  
_

"_No, I haven't received the report yet."_

"_Oh...then I'll forward it to you again." She said, trying to determine how to feed false information to the spy without giving away the fact that she had no idea what she was doing._


	19. Jennifer Hailey

Daniel looked at his wife as they arrived at the Air Force Academy hospital. They'd taken the first flight out of Minneapolis, and after the last four hours, she was looking rather tired. "Are you sure about this, Vala?"

"Yes," she said, nodding.

"All right..."

"Daniel, I'm going to be fine." She assured. "I've done this a thousand times."

"Yes, but most of those times, you had an actual symbiote to protect your health..."

"I'm doing this, Daniel." She said, seriously.

He opened his mouth, and she placed her finger on his lips. "After Grace is home safely and we've saved the world yet again, you can submit me to any tests you find necessary." She assured.

He sighed. "All right."

"Shall we wake Major Hailey now?"

He nodded slowly as she walked down the hallway and into the Major's hospital room. She took the hand device which she had stashed away in her belongings many years earlier, and stood over the comatose woman.

She inhaled slowly before she started the healing process.

Daniel watched her closely as the beeping of the monitors connected to Jennifer Hailey sped up initially before stabilizing. Several nurses hurried in as Vala put away the device and leaned against her husband somewhat weakly.

Jennifer's eyes slowly opened. "Where...am...I?" She asked, looking around her, curiously.

"Major Hailey! You're awake!" One of the nurses cried.

"What's going on?" She asked, confused.

"You were in a coma." Vala informed her.

She looked over at Vala, surprised. "Vala, Dr. Jackson, what are you two doing here?"

"We'll tell you later." Daniel said as he helped Vala sit down.

"Okay..." She said, confused, as the nurses and doctors took over.

One of the nurses walked over to Daniel and Vala. "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to leave now..."

Vala nodded as Daniel helped her up. "All right."

Jennifer looked over. "Will you call Colonel Carter?" She asked, seriously. "I need to speak with her."

Vala and Daniel both stiffened as he looked over. "Um...she passed away..."

Jennifer raised her eyebrows. "What? She was fine when I called her just...how long have I been out?"

"One year." Vala whispered as Daniel led her out of the room.


	20. Meaning

Daniel looked at his watch. They'd been waiting for several hours to see Jennifer again.

Vala brought a cup of coffee over. "Here." She said, offering it to him.

He drank the bitter liquid without preamble as the cell phone in his pocket vibrated. With a small sigh, he reached in and pulled it out. "It's Teal'c," he said, looking over at his wife.

She bit her lip.

"Daniel Jackson." He greeted as he put the small cellular phone to his ear. He nodded a few times, clearly listening to the voice on the other end of the conversation. "Yes, yes...it's like we suspected." There were another few nods. "She's awake now, but the doctors are examining her before we can actually ask her any questions."

Vala sighed as she looked over at him. She wanted to talk to her son, but she supposed the quick debrief was necessary under the circumstances.

Daniel noticed his wife's agitation, and smiled somewhat affectionately. "I think Vala wants to talk to Nicholas. Is he awake?"

There was a brief pause before Daniel handed the phone to her. Vala managed a grateful smile as she held the phone to her ear. "Nicholas? Are they taking good care of you?"

Daniel smiled softly as he watched his wife. She was always so concerned about their son – he knew part of it was because she'd never been able to invest this much in Adria, and they'd struggled just to get Nicholas. For some reason, classified backgrounds were frowned on by the Colorado Family Child Services.

Then, like Cassandra so many years ago, Nicholas had come to them as an alien orphan who had been shuffled from one top-level clearance foster home to another. It was the kind of miracle that reminded him of the existence of supernatural and benevolent beings who actively participated in daily life.

He sighed. Now, the murders of his best friends made him question that thought.

Thinking about Sam made him think about how she'd begun returning to her Catholic roots after she'd been injured by the Ori. He'd always wondered why she'd done it – she'd practically worshiped science for most of her adult life. Perhaps her near-death experience had done more for her than his multiple ascensions.

The strangest thing of it all was that Jack had fully supported her, and even begun going to Mass with her himself just a few years before his death.

Daniel inhaled as he thought about that. He'd once asked Jack why he'd started going back, and his eyes had taken a far-off look as he thought.

"_I figured I owed the Big Guy..." He said with a shrug. "I've got a great life even though I did everything I could think of to make it miserable after Charlie died." He sighed. "Don't get me wrong – there for a while I wasn't sure any loving God could let something like that happen to a kid, but...maybe if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be where I am today. And even though that would have been okay...I'd hate to know what would have happened if I hadn't been there to bring the rest of the team through the Gate when we first went to Abydos..."_

"Daniel?" Vala's voice brought him out of his reverie.

"Yes?" He asked, looking over.

"Nicholas has been released from the hospital." She said with a smile. "He and Teal'c are going to drive down."

"Good." He said, managing a smile.

"And...Jennifer Hailey wants to speak with us."

"The doctors are finished then?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"Okay. Let's go." He said, placing his hand at the small of her back as he led her to the hospital room.


	21. Help

_Grace stared at the computer screen, trying to come up with the simulation data that she'd just promised to her non-existent co-worker. Her mind felt so fuzzy and confused, as if she'd been drugged or feverish._

_She felt a hand touch her shoulder, and the fog lifted. She turned, but there was no one there._

_She sighed. If the spy had known of her confusion, then she was in trouble. The spy probably knew her plan..._

_A packet of data filled with solar energy calculations fell to the floor as a soft wind breezed past her._

_Grace groaned. Even in a dream, she could have a clumsy day._

"_Grace..."_

_She froze. That was her mother's voice._

"_Hey, bunny..."_

_That was her dad's voice – and his nickname for her. Her mother had told her it had stuck after she'd been a bunny for her first Halloween._

_She turned slowly only to find them standing behind her. "Hi, sweetheart." Her mother said with a small smile. "How are you feeling?"_

"_Uh..." She said, stammering. "More than a little confused – you're dead."_

_Sam nodded, soberly. "Yes, we are."_

_She'd expected the spy to use someone or something against her, but this...this was the ultimate cruelty._

"_Grace, it's us." Jack assured._

"_No, Dad...whoever you are...you're a decoy. Get me to tell you the secrets I'm trying to protect..."_

"_Grace, we already know about the colonies. And they're closer than you know to building the weapon that could spell the destruction of the world." Sam said, urgently. "We'd do this if we could, but you need to do it now."_

"_Don't tell me..." She said, sarcastically. "Strict policy of non-interference?"_

"_Grace, we're not ascended." Jack said, seriously. "We're dead..._

"_What?" She asked, absolutely confused. She was starting to get another headache._

"_There are other planes of existence than just the ones the Ancients found." Sam said, softly. "And there is a lot more to understand about life than what they learned."_

"_Like how to move on." Jack said, looking over at his wife._

_She offered him a sad smile before she looked back at her daughter. "Grace, I need you to believe us."_

"_Why?"_

"_Because this woman, the leader of the Amazons, wants to destroy Earth." Jack said, soberly. "And we don't want to see that happen."_

"_What do you want me to do?" Grace asked, still unsure that these were her parents._

"_Use the solar calculations over there..." Sam said, using her hand to initiate a soft breeze which blew the packet of papers closer to her daughter. "This will be convincing enough to make them calibrate the weapon incorrectly."_

_Grace looked at her mother. No spy would ever give her the information she needed to deceive their operation._

"_Mom?" She asked in disbelief._

_Sam's eyes were filled with tears. "Yes?"_

"_How...?"_

"_By the grace of God..." She whispered. "Now, she's coming back...we were able to distract her, but she's going to want those calculations."_

_Grace nodded. She was going to need some time to change the document from one that talked about "solar energy" to one that talked about "ultraviolet energy". She looked back at her parents, afraid that they would be gone before she could say what she wanted to say._

"_What is it, Grace?" Her father asked with a tender smile._

"_I love and miss you." She whispered as she felt tears well up in her eyes._

"_We know." Sam said, softly. "And we love and miss you too."_

"_Isn't there anything I can do to get you guys back?"_

"_Not without changing your future." Jack said, seriously. "And it's a pretty amazing one."_

_She swallowed down tears. "But..."_

"_Grace, we're happy here." Sam interrupted. "And we want you to be happy."_

"_And we trust Nick to keep you happy." Jack said with a grin._

_Sam threw him a look. "We weren't supposed to tell her anything!"_

"_Look, she needed some incentive to leave us where we are..."_

"_And yet...knowing what her future may hold could change the outcome..."_

"_Sam, they're so obviously soul mates! I mean...it can't be that much of a secret!"_

_Grace couldn't help but laugh as her parents turned back her. Her mother walked over and gently kissed her forehead. "I love you, sweetheart."_

"_Love you too, Mom."_

"_We'll keep an eye on you, okay, kiddo?" Jack said as Sam returned to his side._

"_I'd like that." She admitted._

_With that, her parents faded into the background._

_Grace sat there, tears staining her cheeks for a moment before she remembered the urgency of her situation._

_She could have a good cry when she got home and this crisis had been averted._


	22. Ship

Daniel and Vala walked into Jennifer's room to find that she was sitting up in bed, awaiting their entrance.

"The doctors say that they can't think of any reason I would be awake." She said, looking at them. "And apparently, my limbs are back at their full strength even though that's theoretically impossible after a year of non-use."

Vala looked at Daniel before she looked back at Jennifer.

"You used a goa'uld hand device on me, didn't you?"

Vala nodded slowly.

"That means there's something important going on. What is it?"

"We know you called Sam before your accident." Daniel began. "You told her about some unorthodox experiments that had recently been approved by the SGC."

She nodded. "Off-world research colonies that would look into harnessing the energies of various electromagnetic waves which are absorbed by our atmosphere."

"Grace theorized it would be used to make a doomsday weapon of some kind..."

Jennifer's eyes widened.

"That's not the point," Vala interrupted. "The point is that Grace has disappeared. We think she's being held hostage on some kind of ship."

"And you want to find it?"

They nodded. "But we don't know how this foothold situation occurred – or who we can trust."

"So you want me to find it." She said, looking at them evenly.

They nodded again.

"Do you have a laptop?"

Daniel retrieved his own. "It's not as scientific as Sam's was, but that was recently lost in a fire..."

"Was that how she died?" Jennifer asked with an expressionless face as she started her work.

Vala shook her head. "No. She had a stroke."

Jennifer nodded slowly, pausing for only a moment before she returned to her work.

They were silent for a moment before Vala looked at the scientist. "Is there anything we can do for you?"

"Be quiet until I'm finished." She said, curtly.

Vala nodded slowly. "Of course..."

-

An hour passed before Jennifer looked over at them. "There's your ship." She said, showing them the screen of the laptop.

Daniel's eyebrow raised. "They knew it was here the whole time?"

"What else did you expect?" Jennifer asked. "It was the result of a foothold situation."

He nodded somewhat reluctantly. "Yeah...it was..."

"How are you going to get to the ship?"

"I was hoping that we could...pretend we were on a mission..." Daniel said, trying to seem confident that his plan would work. "We have a marker we can call in..."

"Cameron..." Vala said, suddenly on the same page.

He nodded. "If the Head of Homeworld Security can't get us onto the _George Hammond_, then I don't know who can."


	23. Hope

"_Dr. O'Neill?" Dr. Pierce greeted as he entered the tent where she worked._

"_Yes?" She asked, looking over._

"_I'm here for that report..."_

"_Just finished reprinting it." She said with a grin as she pulled the pages out of the printer and put them into a folder._

"_Excellent." He said, looking at the data._

_His eyes widened at the data. "Is this accurate?" He asked, looking up._

_She nodded. "Yes, sir. I double and triple checked."_

"_This will be enough energy to power the planet two or three times over for a year."_

"_And that's just one month's simulations."_

"_I need to get this back to the SGC..."_

_She nodded as the white-haired man in the lab coat hurried off._

_She sighed, hoping that her mother's belief that this misinformation would be enough to render the weapon dysfunctional._


	24. The Rescue

"Dr. Jackson, I assure you," the commander of the _George Hammond, _Colonel Matthews, began. "There's nothing there."

"Try again." Vala insisted.

"Look, we received telemetry indicating that there was an anomaly. Let's just look..."

Matthews sighed. "You have orders from General Mitchell?"

Vala nodded eagerly, and Matthews turned to his navigation officer. "Let's humor them...go to the coordinates please."

The officer nodded before inputting the coordinates into the system.

"Activate the shields..." Daniel suggested. "And the cloak."

Matthews looked at Daniel and then at his weapons officer. "Do it."

In only a few minutes using the sublight engines, they arrived at the coordinates, and Colonel Matthews raised his eyebrows in surprise. "What is that?" He asked, looking at the ship in front of them.

"What we were telling you about." Vala said, softly.

"We'd like you to beam us aboard that." Daniel said, a zat at his side.

"I'm sorry, I can't do..."

"Okay...we'll do it ourselves." He said as he and Vala zatted the officers at the controls.

The entire deck was quiet, and Daniel turned to his wife. "I'll get her, and let you know when we're ready to be beamed back up."

She nodded as she closed the blast doors to the deck. "All right."

He stood, and looked at her. "Ready."

"Be careful." She admonished.

He nodded.

Within a moment, she'd beamed him up to the other ship.

-

_When would she be released from this nightmare? Grace asked as she walked around in the falsified colonial atmosphere. Another question arose as she pondered this, owever. Would she be released at all?_

_She sighed as the headache and confusion from before returned. As she tried to focus back on her work, in an effort to keep herself from looking uncooperative, she felt a growing feeling of nausea overwhelm her senses._

She inhaled as everything became clearer. She was strapped to a cold, metallic surface. She was finally being released from the captivity of her own mind.

She had to find a way out, she thought as she tried to move her wrists in the straps. They weren't moving.

"Mom...Dad..." She murmured as dizziness overtook her at the exertion. "I need your help...now more than ever. Get me out of here..."

-

If he was honest with himself, Daniel had been thoroughly surprised by the fact that they'd encountered no resistance to him beaming up to the neighboring ship. There didn't seem to be a shield protecting the ship from such an invasion as there usually was.

True, the Amazons had been quite secluded from the rest of the galaxy in mythology. But Daniel wondered how a civilization that was known for its warfare could do anything other than research its opponents and attack them at their most vulnerable points.

They'd been silent during the fall of the Goa'uld tyranny. They'd never raised their head during the Ori conflict.

Why now? Why Earth? Why the seeming desperation?

He looked around the ship. There was almost no one here, and he didn't know where Grace was being held.

He inhaled before offering the prayer he wasn't sure would be heard.

"Help me..." He whispered.

A soft beeping began almost instantly from a not-too distant location of the ship, and he bit his lip. Could it have been that simple? An almost too-convenient sign?

Almost as soon as it had begun, it ended. No, he thought to himself.

_Come on, Danny boy..._

Daniel could have sworn that was Jack's voice.

_You're the one who started out a believer...just follow the sound._

Daniel's blood froze as he found himself walking slowly toward the beeping.

He looked around the corner, trying to get a better idea of what the next corridor looked like.

He saw three women, each dressed in brown leather bodices and green ankle-length taffeta skirts, talking rapidly in a strange dialect of ancient Greek. Before he could be detected, he rapidly returned to his hiding position behind the wall so that he could listen.

If his translation of the Greek was correct, the ship was in the midst of a colossal failure, and most of the sentries had been diverted to crisis management.

They were protecting "the prisoner" who would be killed as soon as the crisis was averted.

Daniel gasped silently. Recovering the energy of his youth, he initiated a surprise attack upon the women with a zat blast to each in rapid succession as he noticed a door behind the three falling women.

It seemed to be a variation of Ancient technology, and he took one of the women's hands, running it over the console.

It opened easily to reveal Grace strapped on the table.

"Grace!" He cried as he hurried over to her.

"Daniel?" She asked, looking more confused than he'd ever seen her.

"What did they do to you?" He asked as he quickly undid the straps.

She tried to sit up before she faltered. "I...don't know..." She slurred.

He caught her. "Lean on me, okay?"

She did so as the woman from earlier appeared in the doorway. She opened her mouth as a crash knocked them all to the floor.

"She's a siren!" Daniel cried as he realized why Grace was so confused. A supersonic noise initiated by the strangely beautiful woman had probably thrown her mind into confusion.

The three women from earlier were now awake, having recovered from the zatnik'tel blast more quickly than humanly possible, and standing in their way.

Daniel was sure this was the end. The siren would probably wake any moment, and with these three warriors in their path, they would never make it. He touched his radio button "VALA!" He cried. "I've got her!"

Another crash knocked them all off-balance as an Asgard beam engulfed Daniel and Grace.

As Grace and Daniel appeared on the deck of the _George Hammond_, the alien ship exploded. "Grace! Daniel!" She cried, hurrying over as Grace collapsed in Daniel's arms.


	25. Awake

The lights were almost blinding when Grace awoke in the infirmary. "Agh!"

"Hey there." Daniel said with a smile.

"Welcome to the Living Land." Vala said with a grin.

"It's 'land of the living', Vala." Daniel said with a sigh and a shake of his head.

Grace smiled softly, leaving her eyes closed. "My head hurts."

"You're probably still dealing with the effects of the siren's song."

"Song?" She asked, groggily. "Is that what it was?"

He smiled. "You've got your father's sense of humor."

She sighed. "What happened?"

"Apparently the other ship exploded."

"Really?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Must have been the weapon." She murmured. "Mom said that the solar energy calculations would lead them to calibrate the weapon incorrectly."

"Mom?" Vala asked, looking at her husband, curiously.

He shrugged.

Maybe she had been hallucinating, she thought to herself.

"Nick...the cabin...fire..." She said, suddenly remembering everything.

"He's fine. He's probably waiting for us in Colorado Springs." Vala said, softly.

"And the threat?"

"Probably gone once we make sure that the influence is gone from the SGC." Daniel said, reasonably.

"How could it be a foothold situation? How was the alien infiltration started?" Vala asked, confused.

"I think we'll have to figure that out, but now that we don't have the external pressure of a weapon that can obliterate life as we know it, I think we'll be able to straighten it out like we were able to clean up the NID."

Vala nodded as Grace's eyes closed again. "I think I'm going to get some more sleep..."

"Rest." Vala advised, gently. "You deserve it."

"You did great, Grace."

She managed a small smile before she closed her eyes again.


	26. Epilogue

_One year later:_

"Nick!" Grace cried from behind her blindfold. "Where are we going?"

Her boyfriend grinned as he drove. "Just trust me."

"I trust you." She laughed. "I'm just curious..."

"You're going to love it, Grace." He said, seriously. "That's all I'm going to say."

He looked over to see a small smile settling on her lips.

It had been a tough year for them. The colonies had been abandoned once the mystery of the sirens and Amazons had been disclosed to Stargate personnel from the Pentagon, IOA, Area 51, Stargate Command, Atlantis, the colonies, and the various ships across the galaxy.

Upon his recovery after his concussion, he had found himself somewhat ill-at-ease with his work as an Emergency Room physician. Not long afterward, he applied and was accepted to be a researcher at the University of Colorado – Denver, studying the brain and its functions. Especially in areas of memory, stroke, aneurysm, and migraine.

He'd taken over Grace's care when she'd continued to suffer paralyzing headaches as aftershocks of the siren's song even up to the present day. The other doctors had insisted she suffered nothing less common than acute migraines; he suspected differently. So far, he had only scratched the surface of her condition. He hoped that her symptoms (and the underlying cause) would finally end, and that he would be able to provide similar relief to migraine sufferers or others who suffered the effects of the siren's song.

His mother was another of his test subjects for similar reasons. Her symptoms did not align well with those of Alzheimer's or even the normal forgetfulness of old age. His research had led to some relief of her symptoms, for which he was grateful. He hoped that sometime soon, her symptoms of blackouts and memory lapses would entirely disappear.

Grace lived in her parents' old house, and had been asked to oversee the scientists at Cheyenne Mountain. She'd been more than a little intimidated to take over her mother's old job at the tender age of twenty-five, but she had accepted in her mother's memory. Nick was certain that she was in love with her job.

"You're awfully quiet." She said as her voice pierced his thoughts.

"Oh...uh...sorry..." He said, biting the inside of his cheek.

"No, you're not." She laughed.

He chuckled. "Okay, maybe not..."

"Nick, are we almost there?"

He bit his lip as he reached the specified coordinates. "Not...yet..."

An Asgard beam engulfed them, and she grasped his arm. "What's going on?"

"Just wait..." He assured, gently, as they were beamed up again.

"Now, you can take off that blindfold." He said as they reached solid ground again.

She took the blindfold off, and gasped as she looked around her. "Nick..." She breathed.

They were standing in the living room of an almost exact replica of the cabin her great-grandfather had built and enjoyed.

"Surprise!" Daniel, Vala, Teal'c, Mitchell, and Jen Hailey cried as they walked out into the living room.

"You guys!" She cried, tearing up. "I...I...I'm speechless."

Nick smiled softly as she turned to him. "How did you do this?"

"I asked for some help. And Dad with all of his videotapes had some footage of the cabin. I had a restoration crew come to the cabin and piece it back together."

It was clear that she was overcome with emotion. "Nick..."

He stepped closer to her before enveloping her in his arms as he kissed her gently. "You don't have to say anything." He whispered as he hugged her tightly.

Cam Mitchell coughed after a moment. "Well...it's not that I don't appreciate the obvious sentiment of young love, but to be honest, I hear that Minnesota has some EXCELLENT fishing!"

Teal'c merely raised an eyebrow. "I believe you will be sorely disappointed, General Mitchell."

Hailey chuckled. "Come on, General...I'll show you were the bait, tackle and poles are..."

"Might as well get started on that poker game..." Vala said with a grin as she looked at Teal'c and Daniel.

Daniel shook his head with a chuckle before he turned to Nick and Grace. "You two in?"

Grace nodded as she turned to follow them, but Nick caught her wrist gently. She turned back, somewhat confused. "What?"

"I just wanted to talk to you...just for a minute."

"Okay." She said, standing in front of him. "What?"

He inhaled somewhat slowly as a look of nervousness spread over his features.

"Nick, you look like you're going to pass out..." She teased, gently. "Are you okay?"

He nodded as he bent his knee to the ground. He looked up to see her shocked face. "I...have been trying to figure out how to ask this for weeks now. I wanted it to be as perfect as you deserve..."

"Nick..." She whispered, realizing that her breath was trapped in her chest as her heart skipped more than one beat in anticipation.

"Grace, you are the most outstanding woman I have ever met. You are beautiful, wonderful, and I don't know why you would ever choose me – except that I love you, and I would do anything for you." He said, earnestly. He pulled out a black velvet box with gold accents. He gently opened the box to reveal a tasteful solitaire diamond ring as he looked back up at her. "Grace, I would be honored if one day soon, I could call you my wife." He managed a slightly bolder smile. "Will you marry me?"

Tears moistened her eyes as she nodded slowly. "Yes, Nick...I will marry you." She whispered.

He grinned as he stood, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her.

-

Standing in the newly rebuilt cabin, Sam looked at her husband. "Okay...maybe you didn't screw up the time-continuum..."

He shot her a proud grin.

"Yet." She finished with a sassy chuckle.

"Ah...but now I have you by my side to keep me from really messing up."

She laughed. "Is that why you married me? So that I'd keep you out of trouble."

"Oh yeah...that 'love' stuff had nothing to do with it." He teased.

She looked back at her daughter who was kissing her new fiance. Her smile faded into a sober glance at what she was leaving behind.

"Don't start that, Sam." Jack said, gently. "You knew this day was going to come..."

"I never knew it would come so soon." She whispered. "You and I hardly had the chance to grow old together before I was on my own again, and she was off fighting the bad guys in my place."

"Hey...I was plenty old when I kicked the bucket, darlin'..." He said, seriously.

She managed a small half-smile before she inhaled and exhaled slowly. "I guess this is it..."

"She's going to be fine, Sam."

"I know..."

"She's half-you, after all." He said, affectionately.

"And half-you." Sam said with a smile.

"She'll be unstoppable if she got the good halves..." Jack teased.

Sam chuckled softly as she looked back at her daughter. With a wave of her hand, she sent a fluttering breeze through the window.

-

Grace pulled away from Nick. "Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?" He asked, surprised.

Grace looked back to where her parents (though invisible to her eye) stood. "N...nothing..." She said after a moment of looking around to find some clue that her parents were there. "I just...had a chill..."

-

"Ready to go, Mrs. O'Neill?" Jack asked, looking at his wife after a moment.

She sighed as she nodded. "Yes."

He reached for her hand as they walked through the walls of the cabin in their plane of existence. "Trust me...what you thought you knew about this world is NOTHING compared to what you WILL know."

"And you're going to teach me?" She asked, skeptically.

"Hey! I paid attention this time, Miss I'm-a-helluva-lot-smarter-than-you!" He laughed as they began another adventure together.


End file.
